LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 



ilCA. I 



UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



m 



I 



FROM THE 



PYRENEES 



PILLARS OF HERCULES 



OBSERVATIONS ON SPAIN 

Its History and its People 



% 



1,1 



HENRY DAY 

Author of "The Lawyer Abroad' 



JUiN 25 1883' 



P^ vyashing^ 



NEW YORK 
G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS 

27 AND 29 West Twenty-Third St. 

1883 






Copyright, 1883, 
By G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS. 



PREFACE. 



Books of travel can claim little originality so far 
as they state facts. These are not manufactured, 
but gathered from all sources at command, from his- 
tory, from oral communications, and not least from 
guide-books. We wish to acknowledge our obliga- 
tions to Ford's Book on Spain, which is one of the 
most thorough and reliable books on that country, 
and a most complete guide to the traveler. We 
have not scrupled to use the facts collated by him 
with the utmost freedom. 

It may be asked why should any one presume to 
write a book on a subject so often treated by 
others. The answer is that no two persons are apt 
to notice precisely the same objects in traveling, 
or if they do, they see them with different de- 
grees of interest and in different combinations. 
One traveler may notice natural objects, the geog- 
raphy and topography of the country. He may 
be fond of nature. Another will be more inter- 



IV PREFACE. 

ested in the artificial characteristics of the cities, 
the architecture, the arts. Another will turn his 
attention more to the people, their education, 
manners, dress, amusements, and their social life. 
Another will notice all objects and people in the 
light of history. 

There is a great variety in all these subjects and 
an infinite variety in the way of stating and com- 
bining them, so that a number of books may be 
written on the same country by different persons, 
and all have the freshness of originality, while 
the general framework of facts is common to all. 
So much we are bound to say, as apology for 
writing on a trite subject. As the qualities of 
writers differ, so the taste of readers differ, so that 
all writers, however humble their pretensions, may 
find some sympathetic readers. With this hope, 
this humble effort is dedicated to the Readers by 

The Author. 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

Preliminary Observations on the Character of the 

Country and the People i 

Barcelona 28 

Monserrat. . , 35 

Barcelona to Madrid v . . . 44 

Madrid 47 

Toledo 105 

La Mancha 120 

Cadiz 178 

Gibraltar and Constantinople 188 

Tangier 205 

Morocco 210 

Malaga 214 

Madrid to Bayonne 223 

Burgos 227 

The Pyrenees 235 



FROM THE PYRENEES TO 
THE PILLARS OF. HERCULES. 



PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS ON THE CHARACTER 
OF THE COUNTRY AND THE PEOPLE. 

Spain lies out of the ordinary route of travel. 
Less is known of it than of any other European 
State. It has a wonderful history, which has never 
been well written by English authors. 

By looking at the map of Europe, some of the 
geographical peculiarities of the Spanish Peninsula 
will be seen, and these should be noted. It reaches 
a more southern latitude than any other part of 
Europe. Cadiz and Malaga lie as far south as Tunis, 
and have an African climate and productions. 
Washed by the waters of the Bay of Biscay, the 
Atlantic and the Mediterranean, it is almost an 
island, having a coast line of about 2,500 miles. 

It lays one hand on the Straits of Gibraltar, the 
grand highway of commerce to the Orient, while her 
left hand holds the Pyrenees as her impregnable 
fortress. 

Thus by nature she is constituted an independent 



2 PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS. 

kingdom, with unrivaled commercial facilities, with 
climate and productions entirely unique on the con- 
tinent of Europe. She has an area of about 175,000 
square miles, or one nearly equal to France, four 
times as large as the State of New York, and about 
twice as large as the British Isles. She has a popu- 
lation of about sixteen and one-half millions, while 
France has about thirty-six millions. 

The central part of Spain lies on a high plateau 
from two to three thousand feet above the sea, and 
this is reached generally by traveling sixty or eighty 
miles back from the coast. 

There are seven distinct chains of mountains in 
Spain, with a general dip toward the west. 

Along the plains and valleys, between these chains 
run the six principal rivers, all, excepting the Ebro, 
emptying into the Atlantic. 

Most of them, being rapid mountain streams, are 
of no great use for commercial purposes, excepting 
the Tagus and Duero, the mouths of which belong 
to Portugal. There is no internal communication in 
Spain by means of rivers. The variety of altitude 
gives great variety of climate and productions ; you 
are everywhere within view of mountains; the high- 
est, the Sierra Morena and Sierra Nevada, are con- 
stantly covered with snow. 

The high central table-lands out of which these 
mountains rise comprise about one-half of the land 



PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS. 3 

of the kingdom. They are denuded of trees, except 
where the oHve groves abound in the southern part. 
Cold, damp and wind-rent in winter, they are burned 
up by drought in summer. Want of water is the 
great curse to this part of Spain. The average rain- 
fall during the year at Madrid, the centre of this 
plateau, is only twelve inches, while the average 
temperature is 65° Fahrenheit, and often ranging in 
the summer months from 100° to 110°. Here are 
no fields of grass ; but the soil, where it is irrigated, 
or when the season has sufficient rain, produces ex- 
cellent grain of different varieties. The narrower 
valleys, which can be watered from the snows melt- 
ing on the mountains, and the strip of land along 
the coast, especially on the east and south sides, are 
in perfect contrast to the bare plains of the interior. 
Shielded in winter by the high mountains from 
the northern blasts, fanned in spring and autumn by 
the breezes of the Mediterranean, and watered in 
summer by the melting snows of the Sierras, they 
present a picture of a perfect earthly paradise. No 
wonder the Moors, from the hot deserts of Africa 
and the level, sterile wastes of Arabia, glowed with 
delight as their eyes rested on these charming val- 
leys. No wonder they fought to obtain them, and 
periled their all to keep them. Here they found 
the orange, the fig, the aloe, the pomegranate, the 
grape and the palm, the almond and the sugar cane, 



4 PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS. 

the mulberry and the cotton tree, the citron and the 
oHve, all growing side by side. Here was perpetual 
spring. 

Spain is not deficient in mineral resources. She 
has coal, iron, copper, marbles of all kinds, gold and 
silver; but she has not the enterprise to develop 
them. The gold of the New World demoralized 
them centuries ago. It led them to despise labor 
and commerce. When the gold of the New World 
no longer flowed in upon them, they sank, a poverty- 
stricken people, and have never learned the art of 
self-support. 

There is great variety of climate in Spain, aris- 
ing from difference in altitude. Among the moun- 
tains of Grenada and the Pyrenees the weather is 
dehghtful, even in summer. Along the coast the 
heat of summer is generally very great, but warm 
and spring-like all winter, when the grain is green, 
the oranges ripening, and roses blooming. The 
houses of the people have no fire-places. 

To one accustomed to our warm houses they 
seem chilly in midwinter in Madrid and Grenada, 
which have an altitude of 2,500 feet. 

When it is particularly cold the people have a pan 
of charcoal, called a brazier, set on the floor, in a 
wooden frame, which gives out a gentle heat for a 
long time, enabling them to keep the feet warm and 
tempering the chilliness of the room. The poor 



PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS. 5 

people have no such luxury, even, as this. In the 
lower stories of their stone houses the dampness and 
cold are penetrating, and you will see the people in 
the houses wrapped in cloaks. Little children look 
chilled, and nothing is more common than to hear 
an ominous cough, showing that pulmonary diseases 
prevail. As the hot season is the longest and 
severest, the houses and streets are built with refer- 
ence to keeping out the heat of summer. The 
people depend on the sun, in winter, for warmth. 
You will often see women and children ranged along 
by a wall in the sun, much as we would gather 
around a fire. There is often a difference of 30 or 
40 degrees between the sunny and the shady side of 
the street. The weather in Barcelona, Valencia, 
Malaga and Gibraltar is charming in winter; even 
invalids would find very few days when fire is 
needed. 

It hardly seemed possible to us, in January, when 
the sun was too warm in the middle of the day, and 
trees in bloom, that there could be, in the same lati- 
tude in America, snow and ice, and the dreariness of 
winter. 

Formerly there were fourteen different political 
divisions in Spain, more or less independent of each 
other, such as Leon, Navarre, the two Castiles, 
Catalonia, Estremadura, Andalusia, Grenada, etc., 
having different rulers and different laws, and hence. 



6 PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS. 

in many respects, the people of these different prov- 
inces differ in character, manners, customs, dress 
and language. 

The Castiles embrace the largest and the central 
portion of Spain. They were so named from the 
number of their castles in olden times. Never being 
thoroughly subdued by the Moors, always loyal to 
the Church, its great champion against the Moslem 
invader, they are the stern, haughty, sedate aris- 
tocracy of all Spain, the descendants of the old 
Goths, of the famous old knights and warriors who, 
under Ferdinand and Isabella, expelled the Moors, 
who despise labor and trade, who live on their high 
plains and lonely steppes, which are treeless and 
songless, without hamlets or fences, where every 
height is surmounted by some decaying castle, 
around and in which deeds of high valor have been 
done by their ancestors, and which are perpetu- 
ated among them in romance and song. They cling 
to their gloomy, joyless plains w^th all the de- 
votion of ancient chivalry. 

The Catalans, in the northeast part of Spain, are 
more industrious, active and commercial in their 
habits. They are called the Yankees of Spain, and 
have been merchants from the days of the Phoe- 
nicians. Andalusia, in the southwestern part, is the 
garden of Spain. It embraces Cordova, Seville, 
Cadiz and Gibraltar. The people are mercurial, 



PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS, / 

happy and easy-going, more fond of pleasure, and of 
social and intellectual pursuits, than of labor. They 
have more of the manners, customs, character and 
blood of the Moors than the Castilians. Nature is so 
prodigal, the climate so benignant, that the least labor 
supports life. A little oil, garlic, bread and oranges 
are all that the peasant requires. The sun and his 
cloak warm him in winter; his tall house and open 
court shade him in summer. Here originated some 
of the finest scholars and the best artists of Spain. 
One cannot fail, in the easy life, the procrastination 
of all activity, the everlasting to-morrow, the songs, 
the guttural accent, the dress and the houses, to see 
the resemblance to the Arab race. 

Estremadura, in the western part, is almost a des- 
ert, although one of the best-watered and most fer- 
tile provinces. It is given up to immense herds of 
swine and sheep. It was once highly cultivated, 
and well populated by the Moors, but when they 
were expelled it was abandoned to wild birds and 
beasts for ages, until gradually the shepherds of 
Leon and the northern provinces brought down 
their flocks in winter, to feed on these unclaimed 
pastures, until at length they claimed the prescrip- 
tive right of pasturage in summer, which begat in- 
finite disputes between them and the residents. 
This right at last settled into a law called the Cus- 
tom of Mesta. These flocks would come in detach- 



8 PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS. 

ments of 10,000, each having a conductor, fifty at- 
tendants, and fifty dogs. Some of the flocks would 
travel 500 miles. By the law of the Mesta a sheep- 
walk of ninety paces broad was left uninclosed for 
the driving and feeding of the sheep, which pre- 
vented all proper cultivation. Here were born and 
reared the wild and bloody men, Cortez and Pi- 
zarro. 

Ronda and Grenada, to the southeast, are moun- 
tainous provinces, with beautiful fertile valleys, 
called vegas, watered from the snows of the sur- 
rounding mountains. They are, under the influence 
of irrigation, marvels of fertility, sometimes produc- 
ing four crops, and never less than two, annually. 

They were the strongholds of the Moors, and the 
last from which they were dislodged. They held 
on to these mountain-locked valleys and to these 
fortresses, dominated by their castles, for two cent- 
uries after the other parts of Spain had been wrest- 
ed from them. 

This province is the home of the smuggler, the 
gay contrabmidista, who, by the kindly aid of the 
English at Gibraltar, brings, duty free, all that 
women, priests and peasants fancy — a gay, joyous, 
reckless, well-dressed fellow is he, whom everybody 
likes. The scenery here is as wild and grand as in 
any part of Switzerland. The diligence roads are 
few and the journey must generally be made over 



PRELIMINARY OBSERVATION'S. Q 

wild paths on horseback. The peasants of Spain 
are generally a strong, able-bodied, independent, 
polite race of men. They are industrious in their 
way. The climate makes it necessary to take life 
easily. The men of the better classes have an intel- 
ligent countenance, but a thin, feeble body, as if 
their powers had been sapped by some dissipation. 
The men, high and low, everywhere, and at all times, 
in the railroad car, at the dinner table, between the 
courses, smoke — forever smoke — never the pipe, not 
often cigars, but generally the cigarette. Every 
man has his pouch for tobacco and his paper for 
making cigarettes, and almost every man will have 
his thumb and forefinger discolored by the holding 
of the burning tobacco. The peasant women are 
small and stout, with coarse, sunburnt features. 

The ladies are short, well-formed, inclined to 
stoutness, with black hair, large dark eyes, long eye- 
lashes, fair complexion, square faces, with features 
not particularly handsome. There is no variety of 
feature or of form among them. They all look 
alike. The hair is always neatly dressed with a 
braid or roll on the top of the head, and with nat- 
ural flowers. The ladies as a rule, never wear bon- 
nets. The beautiful mantilla is always worn in the 
street. It is a black lace vail, sometimes large and 
sometimes small, which, thrown over the head, falls 
gracefully upon the shoulders and nearly to the feet. 



10 PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS. 

or may be, more closely gathered on the breast and 
fastened by some pretty ornament. Those who can- 
not afford this mantilla will wear a silk handkerchief, 
beautifully colored, tied over the head. The more 
common people wear a coarser one tied over the 
head in a similar way. 

The charm of the women is not so much in the 
beauty of the face as in symmetry of form, graceful 
walk and bearing, and in their style of dress. The 
lady, and even the little girl, will always have her fan. 
This seems to be her talisman. She talks with it, 
flirts with it, fans and hides her face with it, and by 
its peculiar motions every one knows what its fair 
possessor thinks and feels. 

The standard dress of the gentleman is the capa 
or cloak, generally of black cloth, with some brilliant 
lining, with one side thrown over his left shoulder, 
revealing the brilliant lining as it falls behind. 
The poor man has his cloak also to cover his 
rags. This national costume was said to have 
been adopted for greater facility in carrying 
and in using concealed weapons, and the attempt 
to abolish by law the wearing of this garment and 
the slouched hat which concealed the face, led to 
a revolution in Madrid some 200 years ago. The 
custom was stronger than the king, and the people 
still retain the capa. What law could not do, how- 
ever, fashion is doing. The young swells and aris- 



PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS, II 

tocracy of the great cities now are leaving the old 
Spanish dress for the more fashionable garments of 
Paris. 

PROMINENT POINTS. 

A glance at a few prominent points in the history 
of Spain will make more intelligible what we shall 
have to say hereafter. 

The Phoenicians had colonies in the Southern 
part, before the foundation of Rome. Andalusia 
was called by them Tartessus, from whence they de- 
rived precious metals, corn and oil. This Tartessus 
was the destination of Jonah, which he probably 
would have reached had he not been detained by an 
unexpected event which removed him to another 
sphere of usefulness. The Annalists of Spain say 
that it was first settled by Tubal. 

The Greeks also traded with the ports of this 
country, which was then called Iberia, and many of 
the cities claim to have been founded by Hercules, 
as the frequent towns, temples and statues dedi- 
cated to him attest. From antiquity his name has 
been written on the pillars of the Straits between 
the Atlantic and the Mediterranean. 

The Phoenicians seemed to have transferred their 
allegiance in time to the Carthaginians, and after- 
ward, when the colossal empire of Rome was over- 
shadowing the world, all these colonies submitted 



12 PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS. 

to her after a series of bloody wars. It was the 
battle-ground of Hamilcar, Hannibal and Scipio 
before the Christian era. The whole country was 
brought into entire subjection to the Romans about 
the time of Augustus Caesar, and called Hispania. 

The Romans made the peninsula one of their 
most prosperous colonies ; they introduced all their 
civilization, laws and customs; built cities, roads, 
castles and bridges, some of which remain to this 
day. They educated the whole nation in the arts, 
agriculture and architecture, and for four centuries 
under their sway the Spaniards remained a culti- 
vated and civilized people. Seneca and Lucan and 
the Emperors Trajan, Adrian and Theodosius were 
born here. 

When the Roman Empire began to dissolve from 
its own corruption, the Visigoths overran and con- 
quered Spain, but brought with them their barbar- 
ism. They despised labor and trade, and this quality 
has ever since adhered to the Spaniard. They inter- 
married with the original inhabitants and founded a 
splendid empire, embracing parts of France, all of 
Spain, and part of Africa, near the Straits. 

They adopted the Latin language and the Cath- 
olic faith, and from that time the power of the priest 
has been predominant in Spain. The Goths elected 
their monarchs in an assembly called the Cortes, con- 
sisting of the nobility and the bishops. They took 



PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS. 1 3 

oath to obey him as long as he ruled justly, and no 
longer J but declared the people were greater than the 
king, and he was their servant. This institution of 
old Gothic freedom, called the Cortes, of which the 
English Parliament and States General of France 
are other examples, although shorn of much of its 
power, has survived, and has been the bulwark of 
Spanish liberty, till now it has again re-asserted its 
ancient prerogatives, and secured again for Spain the 
form of a good government. 

The Goths came into Spain about 409 A. D., and 
continued in power until 711, when their authority 
was entirely subverted by the Moors. 

Three centuries of indulgence and luxury in the 
genial climate of Spain had changed the character 
of these simple and hardy warriors. Intestine divis- 
ions had also weakened them, while the authority 
of Mohammed, then in the first century of its exist- 
ence, was fired with all the ardor and self-denial of 
fanaticism. 

The head of the Moslem power, at this time, was 
the Caliph of Damascus. His fiery hordes, carrying 
their religion with the sword, had extended them- 
selves from Arabia, over Egypt, along the northern 
coast of Africa, even to the Straits, and they were 
now attacking the Gothic settlements at Teutan, 
near the African Pillar of Hercules. 

Looking across the Straits to the continent of 



14 PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS. 

Europe, their eyes rested on the charming valleys 
and fields of Spain. It was a land rich in gold and 
silver, abounding in mountains, valleys, springs and 
fruits of every kind, a perfect contrast to the arid 
plains, and they longed to possess it. 

Musa-ben-Nozier, an Arabian, was the commander 
of the Saracen Army, encamped in Barbary. Roder- 
ick, the last of the Goths, was ruler in Spain. One 
of the most desperate leaders of the Saracens was 
a tall, lean, sun-burnt warrior from Damascus called 
Taric el Tuerto, or one-eyed Taric. He sought to 
lead the daring expedition. With a small army he 
crossed the Straits, and fortified himself on the rock, 
now called after him Gibraltar, or, as it was then 
called, Gebal al Taric, the rock of Taric. He burned 
his ships behind him, as did Cortez, in Mexico. His 
followers asked: ^' How shall we escape, if we do not 
conquer?" The fiery Saracen answered: "There 
is no escape for the coward. We must conquer, 
or die." 

" But how shall we return home if we conquer?" 

" Your home," replied Taric, " is before you ; you 
must win it with the sword." 

In a few days the whole power of Spain was upon 
his little army. A terrible battle was fought at 
Xeres, between Seville and Cadiz, and not far from 
Gibraltar. It raged for three days. The luxurious 
Goths could not withstand the desperate valor of 



PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS. 1 5 

the Moor; and at last Roderick was slain and the 
Goths defeated. 

Luxury and dissension had weakened the Goths 
and given them a prey to the Moslem, and the same 
agents, dissension and luxury, seven centuries later, 
destroyed forever the Mohammedan power in 
Spain. 

As has so often been the case in the great wars 
of the world, it is said that there was a woman at 
the bottom of this great invasion ; and the very ro- 
mantic story is told of how Roderick, the king, be- 
came enamored of the beauty of the daughter of 
Count Julian as he saw her at the bath, and how he 
violated even kingly authority to possess her, and 
how in revenge Count JuHan invited the Moors to 
invade Spain, and betrayed his own country into 
their hands. This romance of Roderick, Count 
Julian, and his daughter would fill a volume. 

To the honor of the Moors, be it said, they 
brought with them a superior civilization. After 
the battle of Xeres they spread over the whole 
country, but they allowed the people to exercise 
their religion and retain their property on condition 
of paying tribute. 

For about forty years the Moors of Spain ac- 
knowledged the authority of the Caliph of Damas- 
cus, and he appointed their rulers. But in 758 they 
declared themselves independent of the Caliphate of 



1 6 PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS. 

Damascus, and appointed their own Caliph, whose 
seat was at Cordova. They were a wonderful 
people, far in advance of their Christian neighbors. 
The people were industrious, and agriculture flour- 
ished. They had plantations of sugar, rice and 
cotton. 

Their cities were filled with merchants, and their 
ships traded with all parts of the world. They had 
manufactories of paper, steel, carpets, silk, leather, 
and gold and silver embroidery. They had schools 
where chemistry, mathematics, astronomy, philoso- 
phy and medicine were taught, and were the first 
to teach the use of figures and algebraic signs. 
They had great taste in architecture and in the adorn- 
ment of their houses and gardens, as the Mosque 
of Cordova and the Palace of Alhambra and the 
Moorish cities of Cordova, Seville and Malaga show 
at the present time. 

They essayed to carry the Crescent into France 
and overrun all Christendom, but received a check 
at the great battle near Poictiers, fought by Charles 
Martel, in 732. 

They now founded a magnificent kingdom in 
Spain, which lasted for nearly eight centuries. 

There was, however, a portion of the Goths, who 
inhabited the northern parts of Spain — brave, hardy 
and independent, living among the Pyrenees and 
along the Bay of Biscay — who were never conquered 



PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS. 1/ 

by the Moors. These mountaineers sustained their 
religion and independence, and little by little, cen- 
tury after century, they increased in power, made 
constant inroads on the land of the Moors, and one 
by one regained the great cities of Spain from the 
Moorish yoke. 

The great idea of the Christian world, from the 
Qth to the 1 2th centuries, was to exterminate the 
infidel. From this sentiment originated the Cru- 
sades Ko the Holy Land, and in Spain all the power 
of the Church and of chivalry was centred in this 
one objeC:. The expulsion of the Moor was a holy 
crusade. Knights and warriors of all countries 
flocked to Spain, and vied with each other in daring 
deeds of valoi in fighting the Saracens. 

In these tines rose the immortal Cid, the greatest 
hero of Spanisi Romance. He took Valencia from 
the Moors in IC94 ; St. Ferdinand took Cordova in 
1235, and Sevile in 1242. So that at last, in the 
13th century, tie Moors were driven back to the 
southern parts Df Spain, into the mountains of 
Grenada and Rcnda, which they held until 1492, 
when the conque.t of Grenada was completed and 
Boabdil, the last Tloorish king, delivered the keys of 
the Alhambra to Ferdinand and Isabella on the 
20th of January ol that year, and the power of the 
Moslem, which hal existed for nearly eight cent- 
uries in Spain, cami to an end. 



1 8 PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS. 

The Christians had gunpowder and cannon — then 
recently come into use — as their great weapon, -vrith 
the chivalry and Christianity of Europe leasfued 
with them. The Moslems were, notwithstanding, 
their equals in valor and in skill, but there were dis- 
sensions among them, and this was their ruin. 

No tale of romance can be more exciting thai|i the 
siege of Grenada, as told by Washington Irving! and 
to read it while traveling through the mountain 
passes, or in sight of lofty castles, or within the 
courts of the Alhambra, in full view of the scenes 
where those daring deeds were performe/1, is most 
thrilling. / 

The century from 1490 to 1590 was one of im- 
mense importance to Spain. 

It was here at Grenada, during the /iege, that Co- 
lumbus was commissioned by Ferdnand and Is- 
abella to cross the Western Ocean/ in search of a 
new passage to the Indies, and wljich resulted in 
overwhelming Spain with gold, lu^iiry, power and 
indolence. 

It was in this century that the/Inquisition was 
established, with all its horrorsJin Spain, which 
dwarfed the intellect of the nationfor ages. 

In this century that the Jews aid the Moors, the 
most industrious classes in Spain, were expelled, 
and trade and agriculture lefc to languish for 
centuries, and even till now. I was in this age. 



PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS. 1 9 

and in Spain, that Ignatius Loyala was born, and 
Jesuitism, that curse of all Catholic countries, had 
its rise. All these great events have been fearful 
curses to Spain. They together swept over her like 
the besom of destruction, not only prostrating agri- 
culture, trade and commerce, but changing and 
stultifying the very character of the people. 

Tc? one who desires to trace the causes of all these 
evils, I think it will be found that they at last cen- 
tre back in their system of religion. The Romish 
church is answerable for all the consequences of the 
expulsion of the Jews, the Inquisition and Jesuit- 
ism. The history of Spain, from the time of Ferdi- 
nand and Isabella, is the record of a sad decline 
from the highest position among the European 
powers to the lowest. The more recent troubles in 
Spain have arisen out of Salic law, or the law which 
prohibits a female from sitting on the throne. This 
law, which always prevailed in France, never pre- 
vailed in Spain until the time of Philip V, in 
1750, when he ordained it as the law of Spain, and 
it so remained until about 1832, when Ferdinand 
VII, about to die without a son, repealed the 
Salic law, so that his infant daughter, Isabella, might 
become Queen. 

On the death of Ferdinand VII, in 1833, Don 
Carlos, his brother, was the male heir, who would be 
entitled to the throne in case the SaHc law were in 



20 PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS. 

force. Of course he claimed that Ferdinand VII, 
could not repeal the law — but why could he not re- 
peal it if Philip V could ordain it ? 

But as the throne was the game, each party, as is 
usual, had convincing arguments, and hence the w^ar 
of the Carlists in 1833. Don Carlos was defeated 
and Isabella reigned until 1868, when she was ex- 
pelled and a republic established. 

She then, while in banishment, abdicated in favor 
of her son, Alfonso XII, the present king. 

The recent war by the Carlists has been carried 
on, on the assumption that the Salic law is still in 
force, and that Don Carlos is the rightful heir. 

MARSEILLES TO BARCELONA. 

From France we can enter Spain by one of three 
ways — from Bayonne by rail to Irun, from Per- 
pignan by diligence over the Pyrenees, or from Mar- 
seilles by steamer to Barcelona. We will enter 
Spain by the last route, and leave it by the first. 
The steamers from Marseilles to Barcelona make the 
voyage in twenty-four hours. 

The sail from the harbor of Marseilles presents a 
beautiful picture. The mole which protects the 
shipping from the swell of the outer harbor is a 
grand artificial work, and the granite walls, with 
storehouses erected on them, extend for miles be- 



PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS. 21 

fore the city. The Port is filled with the shipping 
of all countries. 

Passing out of the grand entrance to the outer 
harbor, the city "begins to loom up before us, 
stretching away on to the hills, while far above the 
harbor, the masts and the churches, on the loftiest 
eminence, one thousand feet above the city, stands 
the Church of Notre Dame de la Garde, its tower 
surmounted by a colossal statue of the holy mother 
stretching her arms in blessing over the city of 
which she is the patron saint. She is the last object 
the sailor sees as the shores recede beyond the 
waters of the Mediterranean, and the first to greet 
his view as he makes for the port. We also turn 
our eyes to her — not in worship, but in admiration 
— as we steam out of the harbor past the island If, 
and of Monte Cristo, forever made famous by 
Dumas. 

In twenty hours we are approaching the port of 

BARCELONA, 

in Catalonia, which constitutes the northwestern 
portion of Spain. Catalonia has a sea line of about 
250 miles, and is the most commercial, industrious, 
prosperous and rich of all the provinces of the 
peninsula. It has eight cathedral towns, of which 
Barcelona and Tarragona are the largest. The 
Catalans — the Yankees of Spain — are very indus- 



22 PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS. 

trious. The land is well cultivated, and here is the 
only part of Spain where we have seen the hills ter- 
raced and planted with the vine and the olive. You 
will see the laborers at work before sunrise in the 
fields. Manufactories of all kinds abound, espe- 
cially of cotton, and to such an extent that I was in- 
formed that Barcelona was the third port for im- 
porting cotton in the world, Liverpool and Havre, 
only, importing more. 

Barcelona is surrounded by manufactories of 
paper, cotton and silk, with tall chimneys, which, 
rising from among green olive groves, do not pre- 
sent the forbidding appearance of a manufacturing 
town. The Catalans are quite distinguished from 
other Spaniards in language, dress and habits. The 
proud and haughty Castilian cannot understand the 
patois of the Catalan, and will not recognize these 
bankers, merchants and manufacturers as gentlemen. 

Like all commercial people, they are fond of their 
liberties, and have always been ready to revolt 
against their Government and set up a republic. 
They have been the leaders in nearly every modern 
insurrection, and have been almost as cruel and 
bloodthirsty at such times as the French. 

All the common people wear the blood-red cap, 
which is a bag of woolen cloth about a foot long. 
One end is fitted to the head, and the other is gath- 
ered and falls behind or at the side. They have 



PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS. 23 

short jackets and long pantaloons. The women 
wear the mantilla, or a handkerchief of colored silk 
over the head, and a tight bodice. They have large, 
black, rather fierce-looking eyes, and one can well 
suppose that they have a tincture of Arab or Creole 
blood in their veins. They have more of the char- 
acteristics of the French and the Genoese than of 
the real Spaniard. 

Catalonia exports large quantities of wine and oil. 
In some of the districts it is said that in time of 
vintage the mud of the streets is blood-red with the 
refuse of the grape after the juice is pressed out, and 
that the legs of the peasants, which are the real wine 
press, are of a rich crimson dye. 

To see the dirty, slovenly way of making the wine 
does not tend to increase one's appetite for the deli- 
cious beverage. The wines here are generally thick 
and black as ink, and called black-strap. They are 
exported largely to Bordeaux, to enrich poor clarets 
prepared for the American and English markets. 

Another branch of trade in Catalonia greatly inter- 
ested me, and I took some pains to gather some par- 
ticulars of it from the people. I refer to the culture 
and the 

MANUFACTURE OF CORK. 

The cork is an oak which grows best in poorest 
soil. It will not endure frost, and must have sea air, 
and also an altitude above the sea level. It is only 



24 PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS. 

found along all the coast of Spain, the northern 
coast of Africa and the northern shores of the Med- 
iterranean. There are two barks to the tree, the 
outer one being stripped for use. The cork is valu- 
able according as it is soft and velvety. The method 
of cultivating it is interesting. When the sapling is 
about ten years old it is stripped of its outer bark 
for about two feet from the ground ; the tree will 
then be about five inches in diameter, and say six 
feet up to the branches. This stripping is worthless. 
The inner bark appears blood-red, and is called the 
shirt of the tree, and if it is split or injured the tree 
dies. After eight or ten years the outer bark has 
again grown in, and then the tree is again stripped 
four feet from the roots. This stripping is very 
coarse, and is used as floats for fishing nets. Every 
ten years thereafter it is stripped, and each year two 
feet higher up, until the tree is forty or fifty years 
old, when it is in its prime, and may then be stripped 
every ten years, from the ground to the branches, 
and will last two hundred years. The third crop is 
very poor cork, and is used to make the coarsest 
kinds of stoppers for jars, soles of shoes, etc. It is 
about twenty years before anything can be realized 
from the tree, and for this reason the Spaniards, who 
are not fond of looking after posterity, plant few new 
trees. 

The best cork grows in Catalonia, and is used for 



PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS, 2$ 

bottling champagne. For this purpose it must be 
thick, supple, velvety, and free from holes. The 
generous wines from Xeres (or Sherry) and of Oporto 
require also a perfect cork. 

It is said that over thirty millions of bottles of 
champagne are manufactured every year, and that 
the price of champagne corks is from four to eight 
cents each ; and when we consider the immense 
amount of cork used for other wines, soda, beer, and 
mineral waters manufactured in England, America 
and Germany, we shall see that the trade is some- 
thing enormous. The price of cork has doubled in 
the last fifteen years, and the owners of cork for- 
ests and the speculators in the leases of them have 
amassed immense fortunes. England furnishes the 
best market for cork. The cork wood is much used 
in Russia for the lining of railway carriages and for 
partitions in houses. 

Corks are manufactured largely in the villages of 
Catalonia, and entirely by hand. Men, women and 
boys are employed in cutting, assorting, washing and 
packing them. The men earn from three to four 
francs, and the women from one and a half to two 
francs per day. A good workman will cut 1,500 per 
day, and a woman 1,000. All corks are here cut by 
hand, from the smallest vial cork up to the bung, by 
a sharp knife ten inches long and three and a half 
inches wide. The machine-cut corks of the United 



26 PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS. 

States have a rough, fuzzy coat, and are apt to be 
imperfect, while the workman by hand only cuts the 
perfect wood. Corks for the fine wines must be per- 
fect, and only the skilled workman can detect the 
holes in the centre by the weight. 

All Spaniards are averse to novelties, and even the 
enterprising Catalan will have no labor-saving ma- 
chines. The}^ still, as all over Spain, plow with a 
crooked stick, the same thing exactly, as appears 
from Egyptian monuments, that was used three 
thousand years ago. They threaten to lynch any one 
who will introduce a cork-cutting machine. All the 
houses are built with reference to keeping out heat 
and draughts. In all country houses no doors open 
directly from without, but turns are made in the 
front hall to keep out the air. The houses here, as 
in all Spain, have no fire-places. My informant, who 
was an intelligent cork manufacturer and an edu- 
cated German, says the Catalans are a joyous, happy 
people, living on little and satisfied ; that there are 
no class distinctions ; that poor and rich mingle more 
together than in any other country ; that the women 
are children of Nature, fond of dress, flowers and 
amusements ; that the daughters of the lawyers and 
doctors and of the best citizens of the country towns 
will cut corks to make for themselves spending 
money ; and even the factory girl, who makes twenty 
cents per day, will spend four cents for flowers ; that 



PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS, 2*] 

she will always have fresh flowers in her hair and 
others in a glass before her when at work ; that they 
have very little education, but great natural gifts of 
conversation ; that the men never, except on great 
occasions, go to church, but the women go in the 
morning, and immediately after they go to the rural 
dance ; that they live out-of-doors, often eat out-of- 
doors ; surrounded by a picturesque country, they 
are fond of scenery and lovers of Nature. 



BARCELONA. 

All Spanish cities are old, and Barcelona is one of 
the most ancient. The local historian is fond of claim- 
ing that Hercules founded this city 400 years before 
Romulus v/as bom. Be that as it may, it bears the 
name of Hamilcar Barca, the father of Hannibal, 
and has ever been a famous port. It is probably 
the richest and most enterprising of all the Spanish 
cities. Like Venice and Genoa, it was a higher 
honor in Barcelona to be a great merchant than to 
wear the armorial distinctions of a warrior knight. 
While the old Andalusian and Castilian knights 
were seeking renown on the tented field the mer- 
chant of Barcelona was amassing money by trade in 
foreign parts. The consequence is, the Barcelonese 
are rich and cosmopolitan and the Castilians poor 
and proud. 

Barcelona is the best seaport on the eastern coast 
of Spain. Its natural advantages are considerable 
as a harbor, but they require an extensive wall to 
protect them from the easterly winds of the Medi- 
terranean. The first object which attracts the eye, 
on approaching the city, is the fortress, called Fort 
Montjuick, which frowns down upon the city from 
a height of 800 feet. It was probably intended as 



BARCELONA. 2g 

much to keep the turbulent citizens in check as for 
a defence for the harbor and town. The view from 
this fort is very grand. The Mediterranean is before 
you. Its coast, dotted with villages, can be traced 
far north to the Pyrenees. The city lies at your feet, 
while all around in the suburbs, among the green 
trees, can be seen the tall chimneys of different man- 
ufactories. 

The city is, for a Spanish city, cleanly and well 
built, and consists of the old and new parts. The 
modern city is handsomely built up with large, fine 
houses divided into flats, which are as elegant as 
the residences of Paris. A great feature in the out- 
door life of a Spaniard is his promenade. Here they 
spend their evenings and take their exercise. Here 
the mothers come with their daughters, without 
bonnets, but with the mantilla thrown gracefully 
over the head. If the mother is not with the young 
lady, a very attenuated old duenna attends her in 
her evening walks, and in Barcelona it is proper thus 
to parade the streets in fine weather till 12 o'clock 
at night. 

Barcelona has one grand promenade, called the 
Rambla, extending from the harbor through the 
city. It is continued into the new part of the town, 
where it is called the Paseo de Gracia, which con- 
sists of five avenues of trees, and is the grand drive 
of the wealthy people. 



30 BARCELONA. 

The shops of the city are very fine, especially in 
the display of jewelry, fine dresses and articles of 
luxury. They are brilliantly lighted in the evening, 
and there the ladies of the city may be seen shop-, 
ping or admiring the show till late at night. 

Generally the great feature of a Spanish city is 
its cathedral, and our first visit is ordinarily to it. 
We first ascend its tower, and obtain a general idea 
of the size, locality, surroundings, and appearance 
of the city as a whole. The cathedral of Barcelona 
is a grand old edifice. It was built on the site of a 
pagan temple, converted into a mosque by the 
Moors, and afterward added to and rebuilt into its 
present form. The roof is very lofty and supported 
by light, graceful pillars. The high altar is sur- 
rounded by a semi-circle of columns, and below it is 
the crypt where lies the body of Eulalia, the patron- 
ess of the city, who was killed by Dacian in 304, A.D. 
Her body v/as miraculously revealed to the bishop, 
in 878, by its sweet smell, and was borne to this, 
its last resting place, by two kings, three queens, 
four princesses, and cardinals and bishops without 
number. 

I find in Spain that this odor of sanctity, this sweet 
smell issuing from the body of some saint hundreds 
of years after his or her death, has been a favorite 
way of revealing the mortal remains, when the relics 
or body of a saint were needed to give notoriety to 



BARCELONA. 3 1 

some chapel, church or city. Sometimes, instead of 
an odor, a bright Hght reveals to some pious bishop 
the last resting-place of the holy one, but the sweet 
smell seems to be the most favorite test. Thus it 
comes to pass that almost every church and cathe- 
dral in Spain has these invaluable relics of departed 
sanctity, which constitute a centre for the devotion 
of the people, and often a notoriety which gathers 
thousands of pilgrims annually from all parts of the 
kingdom. Barcelona is too practical a city for much 
of this extreme devotion. The worldly religion of 
this city of merchants and bankers manifests itself 
in the various schools and colleges for the teaching 
of law, medicine and science ; in the building of hos- 
pitals, while their splendid cathedral remains unfin- 
ished and no one frequents it but a few old men 
and women and beggars. While bishops, priests 
and choir, to the number of sixty, are performing 
their grand services with not so many worshipers 
present, the worldly-minded merchants are devoting 
their charities and time to these institutions to edu- 
cate the people and to alleviate suffering. 

We were speaking of the cathedral. Even the 
front, a fine, lofty design, remains unfinished, 
although all the marriage fees for three centuries 
have been reserved for this purpose. The front is 
composed of stucco and paint, and probably will so 
remain for ages as an argument for pious contribu- 



32 BARCELONA. 

tions. There are two singular features about this 
cathedral which we have not seen out of Catalonia, 
viz., the numerous belfry towers made of ornamental 
iron frames, and the multitude of Saracens' heads 
used as corbels. The head of the Saracen, grim, 
horrid with pain, or grinning with torture, is used as 
the water-spout from the roof. It shows how a na- 
tional sentiment of a people — in this case, hatred of 
the Moor — stamped itself upon the architecture of 
the nation and originated one of its peculiar features. 

Everywhere in Spain the people are demoralized 
by the sale of government lottery tickets. These 
are sold at all prices, from lo cents upward. Every 
porter, every waiter at the caf^s, boys and women 
in the street, are selling the tickets for a small com- 
mission given by the government. Almost all the 
poor people are gamblers in lottery tickets. We 
were at Barcelona about Christmas time, when the 
drawing takes place. The excitement was extreme 
among the common people. One old man told me 
he had bought tickets all his life and spent all he 
earned in this way, and had drawn one prize. 

Christmas and New Year's day are festivals de- 
voted to pleasure, eating and dancing. In prepara- 
tion for it you will find the streets filled with flocks 
of live turkeys, and peasants from all parts of the 
province, with their picturesque dresses, selling 
them. A particular wafer called neulas and a cake 



BARCELONA. 33 

called turrones — made of honey, almonds and sugar, 
which is the very quintessence of all sweets — are 
then sold everywhere. 

Hotel life is much the same in Spain as in France, 
but of a lower order. You have chocolate and a 
roll in your room early in the morning ; breakfast of 
courses, which is really a dinner, at 1 1 o'clock, and 
table (Thote dinner at 6. But the smells of the 
hotels are simply horrible ; even in the large cities 
and in the smaller hotels of the towns they are pes- 
tilential. This arises from the want of drainage. 
Generally there is no water in the house and no 
connection with any sewer, and the whole house is 
pervaded with these dreadful odors, such as no 
people but the Spaniards can produce or endure. 
The wonder is that the people do not all die of 
typhoid fever. 

Barcelona has now about 170,000 inhabitants, and 
is a delightful city for a winter residence. The cli- 
mate is mild, tempered by the breezes from the 
Mediterranean ; the sun, in winter, is warm and 
genial ; storms are rare. Rents, in fine new resi- 
dences, are cheap, and living at the hotels about two 
dollars and a half a day. It has great social advan- 
tages, being the capital of the Province, the see of a 
bishop, and the residence of a captain-general, so 
that visitors do not want for church or military dis- 
plays. Their university, their commercial, civil, mil- 



34 BARCELONA. 

itary and art academies have given a social culture 
to the people, and their constant intercourse with 
other nations has given them a cosmopolitan char- 
acter not ordinarily met with in Spain. They have 
here one of the finest opera-houses in the world, 
those of Naples and Milan only being superior 
to it. 

It was here in Barcelona that Columbus was re- 
ceived by Ferdinand and Isabella, in April, 1493, 
after his return from the discovery oft he New World; 
and here, at the Church El Behm, is deposited the 
sword of Ignatius Loyola, which he consecrated to 
the Virgin, before her altar in Monserrat, in 1522. 



MONSERRAT. 

MONSERRAT is one of the many, and perhaps the 
most celebrated of the sacred shrines of Spain. It 
lies about twenty miles northwest of Barcelona, near 
the Barcelona and Saragossa Railway. Leaving 
Barcelona before sunrise, we found the peasants 
working in the fields, and always wearing a red cap, 
with a long, slouched top. The common people 
work early and late, but take their siesta from eleven 
till two o'clock, or later. The heat of midday for- 
bids work, and this circumstance has fixed the al- 
most universal custom of the country in regard to 
labor. The railroad passes over a country made up 
of high, bold hills, sloping to the top, and furrowed 
and broken by gulches worn by water-courses in 
rainy weather, with higher ranges of mountains in 
the distance running in every direction. These moun- 
tains are often separated by rapid streams, winding 
their way among them from the higher mountains 
in the interior to the sea. Along these streams the 
railroad finds its way, often along high cliffs and 
through tunnels piercing the red rocks. Hills, 
mountains and valleys are covered with the vine. 
Not an inch of land is wasted. Even to the tops of 
the highest hills, and along the precipitous base of 



2,6 MONSERRA T. 

mountains, where a vine will grow, there you will 
find a terrace well cultivated and tanks for artificial 
irrigation. Often the mountain sides are blasted out 
and a place walled up for a vine-covered terrace. 

Monserrat is a lofty, jagged mass of rock, about 
twenty-five miles in circumference, rising up from 
the ordinary level of the country about four thou- 
sand feet. The beautiful river Llobregat winds 
around its base, furnishing water power for numer- 
ous silk and cotton mills. 

The name — Monserrat — signifies the saw-like char- 
acter of the mountain peaks. The range is cleft in 
sunder by one awful chasm from east to west, and 
rising four thousand feet high along this chasm are 
numerous sharp peaks, serrated, smooth, resembHng 
the teeth of a saw in the distance; but on nearer 
approach they tower above you straight into the 
clouds, some resembling the teeth of a tiger, some the 
tusks of elephants, some a sugar-loaf. One, called 
the head of San Antonio, is much like the head and 
face of a man. One, an immense lofty rock, is like 
a sphinx, beside which the Sphinx of Egypt appears 
like a baby. 

Before ascending the mountain we should give a 
short account of its history, to show how it has 
gained its sacred character. On one of its rocky 
heights once dwelt a Norman lord, whom the Moors 
in the eighth century were not able to expel. To a 



MONSERRAT. 3/ 

certain cave on this mountain the people brought a 
famous image of the Virgin Mary, to prevent its fall- 
ing into the hands of the Moors. This image was 
made by St. Luke, in Jerusalem, A. D. 50, and 
brought by St. Peter to Spain. For centuries the 
image remained in this cave, forgotten by man. 
After the expulsion of the Moors, the Virgin, weary 
of so monotonous a life for her favorite image, re- 
vealed its resting-place to some shepherds by a 
bright light, and afterward to the pious Bishop of 
Vique by a sweet smell which preceeded from the 
cave. The Bishop prepared to carry her in great 
state into Manresa, a town near by, to his cathedral, 
but after proceeding along the mountain side a little 
way, the Virgin obstinately refused to go farther ; 
and here afterward, about two thousand feet up the 
mountain side, in a most sightly and romantic spot, 
was built her chapel. 

In 976 a convent was erected here for the Bene- 
dictines, and this became a famous shrine for the 
Catholic world. Emperors and kings came here and 
laid their gifts before the Virgin. The monastery 
became one of the largest and richest in Spain. 
Philip II opened the splendid chapel, where the 
Virgin now is, in 1599. 

Around this chapel, clinging to the mountain 
sides, are immense piles of buildings, capable of 
holding two hundred monks. This monastery was 



38 MONSERRAT. 

suppressed in 1835, and all but thirteen monks were 
turned adrift on the cold world. The French plun- 
dered this convent in 1 8 10, carried off all the silver 
ornaments, and defaced and destroyed what was of 
no use to them, as they did in almost every city of 
Spain. 

We left the railway at Monistrol, about three miles 
from the foot of the mountain. A diligence con- 
veys us from thence to the monastery, about half- 
way up the mountain. Looking at the mountain 
from the north, the top of it looks like the jaw of an 
immense alligator, with the teeth upward. The 
sides of the mountain recede upward in terraces, 
like the Pyramids of Gizeh. Of so much importance 
is this holy shrine, that the government has con- 
structed and keeps in order a magnificent road, wind- 
ing up in zigzag course, like the roads of Switzerland, 
for two thousand feet to the monastery. Here is 
the chapel and the Virgin, and here we must pass 
the night in the cold, bare cells of the dead monks, 
with a stone floor, long ranges of gloomy, empty 
cells around us, and the vaults of the departed monks 
beneath us. We have a coarse, clean bed, a jug of 
water, a towel, and nothing more. A good-natured, 
frowzy-looking old monk, the only one we saw, con- 
ducts us to the oaken door, gives us the long, ancient, 
rusty key, and, without light or fire in the winter 
night, we are left to our thoughts. We had been 



MONSERRA T. 39 

told during the day that one good old monk, long 
since dead, often wandered among the scenes of his 
earthly career after nightfall. This added to the 
interest of the occasion when all was dark and still, 
and we heard the owls hooting from the shadowy 
recesses of the old cloisters. 

It was a night of weird, strange sensations. Here 
the great Charles V had come on a pilgrimage ; here 
also, his son Philip II paid his devotions. Here, 
in the chapel, Loyola, in 1522, after watching all 
night before the image of the Virgin in prayer and 
fasting, dedicated himself to her service and laid his 
sword on her altar, which is now preserved at Barce- 
lona. Here monks and anchorites from all the noble 
families and royal houses of Spain spent their lives, 
never departing from these walls, and their bones lie 
mouldering in the crypts below. But however weird 
and strange were our thoughts at night in these 
gloomy, forsaken cloisters, with owls and bats for 
our companions, the morning dispelled all such 
gloom. We could see the sunrise on the high peaks 
over us, while the valleys were all dark below. The 
mist was rising over the river which threaded its way 
far below us down through the valleys. The white 
villages one by one came out through the mists as 
the sun rolled them up the mountain sides. 

Those old monks had chosen a glorious place for 
their home. The chief object of interest at the mon- 



40 MONSERRA T. 

astery now is the chapel of the Virgin, containing her 
image, her dresses, and the room full of votive offer- 
ings which have been made to her. The chapel is a 
large, fine church, but its best things have been carried 
away by the French. We cannot but admire the 
boldness of the undertaking to build so massive a 
church on this inaccessible height. The Virgin is 
raised to a little gallery over the high altar. She is 
dressed up in tawdry finery, ribbons and tinselry. 
She is made of black wood, and holds a child on her 
lap and a ball in her right hand. One room behind 
the high altar is devoted to the safe-keeping of the 
votive offerings made to the Virgin in return for 
miracles wrought. The room is filled with a great 
medley of articles, among which are faces, legs, arms, 
hands and feet, cut from marble ; crutches, canes, 
military hats and coats worn in battles, with the 
former owners' names attached ; rude pictures, repre- 
senting great deliverances, most of them coarse and 
ridiculous, as if intended for caricatures. For ex- 
ample, one represents a man with a donkey-cart 
struck by a railroad train. The donkey and cart are 
thrown into the air, the donkey with his feet up- 
wards and the cart on the top of the man, and all 
tumbling in mid-air over a precipice. Another, a 
little chap falling down stairs and yelling most lust- 
ily ; another, a child falling out of a window ; people 
on sick beds praying to the Virgin. These are fair 



MONSERRA T. 4 1 

specimens of hundreds of pictures which, framed and 
hung around the room, attest the wonder-working 
power of the Virgin. All this trumpery shows what 
a hold the worship of Mary has on the people, high 
and low ; but the most significant fact showing this 
is that sixty thousand persons annually come on pil- 
grimage to the monastery of Monserrat to pray be- 
fore this Virgin. 

While we were there, one poor creature, an old 
woman, arrived on foot from Naples, and peasant 
women from the country, with some burden on their 
hearts, had come to get relief from the holy mother. 

When our party were admitted to the gallery 
where the Virgin was, these poor creatures pressed 
in, and it was a sight which brought tears to the 
eyes to see them weeping, clasp the Virgin's feet 
and tell her their sorrows and supplicate her help. 

As yet we are only half way up Monserrat. 
From the monastery to the highest point of St. Je- 
ronimus it is two thousand feet. The path lies along 
the face of a fearful chasm, which divides the moun- 
tain from east to west. It is said, that it was rent 
in twain on the day of the crucifixion. From the 
monastery to the top of St. Jeronimus, scattered 
along the steep and difficult path, are twelve 
stations or hermitages, each perched on some lofty 
and almost inaccessible rock. The one, on the top 
of the highest point, is called the Hermitage of St. 



42 MONSERRA T. 

Jeronimus; another, St. Andrus ; another, Santiago, 
until nearly the whole calendar of the saints is em- 
blazoned upon these weather-beaten points. The 
way up along the chasm which divides the mountain 
runs along high, dizzy cliffs, ascends by steps cut in 
the rock, passing these hermitages one after the 
other. It is called the Via Crucis. All these her- 
mitages were once filled with anchorites, who lived 
each in his cell alone on these lofty heights, from 
which he never departed alive after he had once 
entered it ; and yet, it is said, these cells were 
eagerly sought as a great prize by the devotees of 
those days. The view from the top of St. Jeron- 
imus is exceedingly grand. We stood there as the 
sun went down ; the blue sea was far to the east ; 
the whole country, seen from the top, was broken 
into undulating hills, rising into mountains; the 
Pyrenees rose far away on the northern horizon, 
covered with snow; mountains abounded every- 
where ; and from these lofty pinnacles, looking be- 
low, it appeared as if a tumultuous sea had been 
suddenly petrified in its most angry commotion; 
the beautiful Llobregat wound like a thread of silver 
at our feet, and a few miles away in the valley, 
just before us, at the north, lay the city of Manresa; 
and near by it the cave where Loyola passed a 
whole year in penance before he devoted himself to 
the Virgin at Monserrat, and where, it is said, he 



MONSERRA T. 43 

wrote his book — the rules of his famous order — 
under the very eyes of the Virgin, who looked from 
her lofty and jagged throne, on Monserrat, with 
smiles, down upon her faithful knight keeping vigils 
in his lonely cave. 



BARCELONA TO MADRID. 

Our route will now lead us from Barcelona nearly- 
due west, out of Catalonia into Arragon, to the old 
city of Saragossa. The whole journey is through a 
picturesque country, clothed with vines and abound- 
ing in cork and olive trees. We wind through beau- 
tiful valleys, over high cliffs, through frequent tun- 
nels, passing no considerable town until we arrive at 
Lerida, about II2 miles. 

This city has been a post of military importance 
and the key to Catalonia since the days of the 
Romans. The armies of Caesar and Pompey, 
Saracen and Christian, Wellington and Napoleon, 
have in turn fought for it. 

Here, if the annals are to be believed, died 
Herodias and her daughter Salome. While per- 
forming their dances on the frozen river, the ice 
broke, and both were drowned ; but the head of 
Salome was cut off by the sharp edge of the ice, and 
from the very force of early habit the bodiless head 
continued its dance, and so the Baptist was 
avenged. 



SARAGOSSA. 

This city, the capital of Arragon, named after 
Caesar Augustus, is on the Ebro, and has been 
famous in all history for its military importance. It 
was one of the great centres of Roman civilization, 
and here was born the first Christian poet, Aulus 
Prudentius, about 348, who has been styled by the 
critic Bentley the Horace and Virgil of the Chris- 
tians, and who celebrated in song the edict of the 
Roman Senate which forbade the worship of idols 
and established the Christian religion, which de- 
throned Jupiter and enthroned Christ. The city is 
divided by the Ebro which is a noble stream, 
spanned by a splendid stone bridge, first built by the 
Romans. It boasts of two cathedrals, neither of 
which is distinguished for antiquity or architecture. 
The more modern one is called the Cathedral el 
Pilar, because it contains the identical pillar on 
which the Virgin descended from heaven. One of 
its chapels contains an image of the Virgin and 
Child, in black wood, rude and coarse, but very 
sacred. It is said that fifty thousand pilgrims have 
come to this sacred shrine in one year. It is a 
Bethesda for the lame, halt and blind, who come 



46 SARAGOSSA. 

here to be healed if the Virgin is propitious. It is 
also a harvest field for beggars, and here they con- 
gregate in great numbers. The city from without 
with its massive walls, pierced by eight gates, its tall 
towers, spires and cupolas give it a grand appear- 
ance. Within, the streets are narrow, dirty and the 
houses dilapidated. It has one fine thoroughfare 
called the Coso,. 

Its churches were plundered by the French, and 
its fine old castles were riddled by shot and shell 
during the two famous sieges by the French in 
1808, commanded by Marshals Lannes, Junot, 
Mortier and Moncey, in which were sacrificed need- 
lessly 60,000 brave soldiers. The leaning tower of 
San Felipe is worthy of comparison with the 
famous tower of Pisa. 

From Saragossa to Madrid, by rail, is a journey of 
twelve hours, made in the night. 



MADRID 

is a city built on a high plateau, surrounded by 
bleak and barren plains, with a treacherous climate, 
glaring with heat in summer and subject to severe, 
chilling winds in winter. Puerta del Sol, once the 
eastern gate, is now the heart of the city, from 
whence, like arteries, all the large streets radiate. It 
is a square upon which, or near which, are congre- 
gated all the fashionable shops and saloons, and 
through which flows the life and fashion of the city. 
The Prado, extending along the eastern side of the 
city, is beautifully laid out as a park with walks and 
groves, and is the Central Park of Madrid. It is a 
modern city first brought to notice by the Emperor 
Charles V, who regarded its climate a panacea for 
his bodily ills. His son, Philip II, removed the 
seat of government to it in 1560 from Valladolid. 
There is nothing in its position or surroundings to 
recommend it as the site of .a great city. It has no 
military importance; it guards no pass or fruitful 
vega, and is surrounded by no agricultural inter- 
ests. Nothing but the whim of Royalty could have 
made it a great capital. It imports everything 
from a long distance, and manufactures nothing. 



48 MADRID. 

It has no cathedral or ancient buildings of note, 
yet there are places of interest which we cannot 
omit to mention. The Royal Palace is one of the 
finest in Europe. It is situated on the western side 
of the city, overlooking the Valley of the Manzan- 
ares and a wide sweep of country to the west, reach- 
ing to the Guadarrama mountains, which, standing 
in rugged and lonely grandeur, covered with snows, 
limit the view in that direction. The palace was 
intended to surround a square, and to be 470 feet 
on each side and 100 feet high. It was laid out 
on a scale so grand that it would have rivaled the 
Tuileries, but it has never been finished. Only one 
side of this immense pile is completed. It is a 
palace 450 feet long, built of white stone resembling 
marble, and stands nearly 100 feet high. The Span- 
iards are fond of display, and the palace shows all 
the magnificent variety of tapestry, velvet, gorgeous 
furniture, rich marble and mosaics generally found 
in princely mansions. The stables interested me 
more than the palace. There were about 150 horses 
for the use of the young king, embracing his house- 
hold coach horses, driving-horses and saddle-horses. 
Each had a name over his stall. They were reared 
in Spain, France and England. The Spanish horses, 
especially the Andalusian, did not show the finest 
points. They had short, heavy bodies ; long tails, 
held close to the body ; tapering necks ; fine thick 



MADRID. 49 

breasts, but short, hollow backs. The carriages were 
superb. I counted one hundred of all sorts and 
sizes ranged in an immiense room. 

There were some ten or twelve state coaches used 
from the time of Ferdinand and Isabella down. 
They were covered with gold and inlaid with ivory 
on the outside, and lined with Gobelin tapestry, 
satin, gold and silver cloth within. One of these 
was the carriage of Crazy Jane, daughter of Ferdi- 
nand and Isabella, and mother of Charles V, who 
is said to have carried her husband's body in its 
coffin with her for forty years, until her death. 
The harness is made in the royal stables, and are 
the most magnificent trappings that horses ever 
wore. There is a guard of twenty horse and about 
one hundred foot soldiers always on duty around the 
palace, and they are relieved every two hours. All 
this, for a country which is hopelessly in debt, ap- 
pears a most extravagant display. These append- 
ages of royalty are finer, perhaps, than those of any 
crowned head in Europe. 

There is a naval museum at Madrid, which has 
two things which interest an American. One is 
the exact model of the vessel in which Columbus 
crossed the Atlantic in 1492, and a chart of the 
world, on parchment, said to have been made by 
him on this voyage. This chart resembles very 
much the photographic pictures of the moon, which 
3 



50 MADRID. 

we see now a days. His portrait, and those of Cortez 
and Pizarro, may be seen here. 

The Armeria Real is near the palace. It is the 
finest collection of ancient armor I have ever seen. 
It is arranged in a hall 227 feet long. Here are 
gathered the armor and the weapons worn by the 
great heroes in Spain for centuries past. Along the 
centre of the room are arranged equestrian figures, 
completely covered with the identical armor worn 
by different knights and kings. Along the sides of 
the rooms are standing figures, also arrayed in their 
complete panoply of helmet, breast-plate and coat 
of mail. Here are the helmets worn by Hannibal 
and Julius C^sar. There are a number of suits 
of armor worn by Charles V, most exquisitely 
wrought. One is the very suit in which he entered 
Tunis in triumph, and is called Borgonota. The 
shields are as elaborately wrought as the famous 
shield of Achilles, and seem to have been patterned 
from it. Some of the armor is beautifully chased 
and wrought in black enamel and gold. All are 
specimens of fine arts after the style of Cellini. 
Here are the swords of the Cid, of St. Ferdinand, of 
Ferdinand and Isabella, of Pizarro and Cortez, Don 
John of Austria, the hero of Lepanto, and of a host 
of others. Here is the armor of Columbus as Ad- 
miral of Spain. The whole armory is full of these 
relics of great heroes. They are so arranged as to 



MADRID. 51 

illustrate the improvements in weapons and defence 
from the earliest to modern times. 

This is one of the most interesting objects in 
Madrid. There is another place which has a mourn- 
ful interest for Protestants — that is the Plaza Mayor. 
This is the old grand square of Madrid, where the 
royal bull-fights were celebrated, and where the In- 
quisition held the auto-da-fl. The square is 400 
feet on each side, and in the centre is a fine eques- 
trian statue of Philip III, by John of Bologna. 
When the trials and the executions of the aiUo-da- 
y/were held, a great platform was erected for the 
judges of the Inquisition on one side of the square. 
The front rooms and balconies fronting on the 
square were reserved for the royal family, the noble- 
men and the clergy. The seat of the king was on 
the balcony in the centre of the north side of the 
square, where are now seen the royal arms on the 
front of the house. The populace crowded in and 
filled the square. Thus, under the countenance of 
the king, in the presence of all the high dignitaries 
of the Church, arrayed in their priestly robes, the 
culprits were brought forth to be tried by the judges 
of the Inquisition, who were accusers, judge and 
jury. The trial generally commenced early in the 
morning and lasted the whole day, and ended in the 
lurid fires which consumed the wretched victims 
and gave a grand finishing stroke to the spectacle 



52 MADRID. 

which was intended to strike terror into the hearts 
of all beholders. This accursed institution did its 
work well, and accomplished what was intended by- 
it. Ferdinand first established it in Seville in 148 1. 
He was a grasping, crafty prince. His object was 
to extort money, terrify his opponents, and re- 
venge himself on his enemies. The Church used it 
as an engine to extirpate heresy and to perpetuate 
its power. Working in secret, its mysterious 
agents scattered everywhere, invincible in power, 
from whom no secrets were hid, omniscient and 
omnipresent, it struck a dread fear to the heart of 
every Spaniard, and locked his soul in suspicion 
against every man ; froze all the sweet and tender 
sympathies of social life ; destroyed confidence and 
trust in his fellows, and shut the door on hospital- 
ity. Three centuries of this discipline has made the 
haughty, reserved, suspicious Spaniard what he is 
to-day. The sweet amenities of social life are not 
known among them. Every man lives in and for 
himself. Every man suspects his neighbor. Re- 
venge is a national trait, and the dagger of the 
assassin has ever been the familiar weapon to ex- 
ecute his behest. In days gone by no Spaniard was 
without this weapon concealed under his cloak, and 
the city of Madrid was nightly the scene of some 
secret murder. 

The effect sought by the Church to be produced 



MADRID. 53 

by the Inquisition has been accomplished. Men 
dared not think for themselves. The yoke of priest- 
craft was fastened on them ; they became, body and 
soul, the property of the Church, and subject to her 
dictation, till they can no longer think or reason for 
themselves. The Inquisition, or the Holy Tribunal, 
as they called themselves, since its organization in 
Spain alone, burned 3,460 persons alive, 18,000 in 
effigy, imprisoned 288,000 from 148 1 to 1808, and 
they confiscated the goods of all these persons to 
the use of the king or the Church. It expelled the 
Moors and the Jews, who were their most industri- 
ous and commercial people ; it destroyed all enter- 
prise and progress in the development of their 
resources ; and thus Spain became a nation of gran- 
dees, priests and peasants, without education, with- 
out industry, and without commerce. 

The crime has been great. Its lurid fires have 
lighted up ages of persecution. But Nemesis is now 
demanding and taking her satisfaction. 

THE MUSEO. 

The most attractive object to the stranger in 
Madrid is the Museo, or the gallery of paintings. 
It is far from being as large as some other galleries 
in Europe, and yet I think there is no other which, 
in interest, excels it. It has pictures by most of the 



54 MADRID. 

great masters, with this advantage, that nearly 
every picture is a gem ; and it has what no other 
gallery has — the pictures of Velazquez and Murillo 
in ail their glory. A respectable Velazquez can be 
found nowhere else ; neither can Murillo, in all his 
richness and beauty as a Conception painter, — as he 
is called in Spain, or as a painter of saints, — be seen 
out of this kingdom. He is best known in other 
European galleries by his beggars and peasants, 
which were not the efforts of his more mature 
genius. This gallery comprises some of the best 
pictures of Raphael, Guido, Van Dyke, Claude, 
Titian, Rubens and Albert Durer. 

The extraordinary merit of this collection is ac- 
counted for from the fact that Charles V, living 
at the time when painting was at its zenith, was a 
great patron of the arts, as were also his successors, 
and they invited the great masters to the Spanish 
court and treated them with distinction and inti- 
macy. Titian, Velazquez and Rubens produced 
some of their best works at Madrid while they were 
entertained at the royal palace. As these royal per- 
sonages were lovers of art, and their sway extended 
at different times over the German Empire, Naples 
and Netherlands, they gathered from those countries 
and sent to Spain the best productions of the most 
distinguished artists. Did this gallery possess noth- 
ing more than the sixty-four pictures by Velazquez, 



MADRID. 55 

forty by Murillo, ten by Raphael, and forty-three by 
Titian, it would be considered one of the finest in 
the world. This is the centre of attraction in Ma- 
drid, and the traveler will not be satisfied to finish 
a day of sight-seeing without a daily visit to the 
Museo, and for the same reason that in Rome one 
finds himself almost daily wandering into St. Peter's, 
or in Paris into the Louvre. When all things else 
fail, these are ever fresh and full of new beauties 
never seen before. 

This gallery was opened in 1819 with only about 
300 pictures, which were gathered from the different 
palaces belonging to the crov/n. Additions have 
been made from time to time from the crown collec- 
tions, until now there are about 3,cco pictures in the 
collection. We cannot pretend to the high honor 
of being an art critic, but no one can visit the great 
galleries of Europe and linger over these inspirations 
of beauty and loveliness by Raphael, Murillo and 
Correggio, without some discipline of the eye and 
taste which will enable him to tell what he likes and 
why he likes ; and no man need be ashamed that his 
taste, his appreciation for the beautiful, differs from 
another. We are all made to differ in such matters. 
We may, therefore, be pardoned for a few thoughts 
on this gallery, which is so unique and little known. 

The most striking pictures here, although I think 
not the most pleasing, are those by Velazquez. 



$6 MADRID. 

Spain was his home ; here he was appreciated and 
rewarded by royal honors. There is great originality 
in his pictures, and perfect naturalness. He has no 
ideality, no high sense of the beautiful. He always 
fails in his virgins and saints and sacred subjects from 
want of ideality — this quality of uniting in one face 
all that is heavenly, and excluding all that is earthly, 
as Raphael could do. His women are women and 
his men are men, just as you see them, with all that 
is human and earthly about them. He was a paint- 
er of men par excellence ; men of all classes, kings, 
dwarfs, peasants, soldiers. His strong, manly nature 
comprehended what he saw and fixed it on the can- 
vas ; but women, gods, goddesses, virgins, saints, any 
subject which required a combination of ideal quali- 
ties, was beyond him. He paints Vulcan as a grimy, 
ordinary blacksmith ; the Virgin Mary as a sedate 
matron ; the divine Father as a bald-headed old gen- 
tleman. His portraits, especially the equestrian, are 
exceedingly fine. His horses seem to move toward 
you out of the canvas. His pictures of common life 
— dwarfs, peasants and revellers — are inimitable from 
the perfect naturalness. He introduces dogs and 
horses which are as fine as Landseer's. 

His landscapes are wonderful from their depth, 
their coolness, produced by a light gray or bluish 
color. The details are few, but these are such as 
you can feel in all their natural freshness. You 



MADRID. 57 

almost see the cool air ; you certainly feel it. You are 
as conscious of the long, deep, shady vistas, as if you 
were walking under the trees amid the fountains, 
and along the purling streams. One or two pictures 
we cannot forbear naming. One, called ^Esop, repre- 
sents the philosopher in the coarse attire of a peas- 
ant. But a few touches in the dark, tawny color, 
shaded only by slight traces of white, reveal the 
coarse, keen, defiant wit which would have done 
honor to a Diogenes. One is astonished to see how 
so little coarse paint can say so much. As a rule, all 
his pictures which attempt the higher or the tender 
sentiments are failures; but there is one exception 
which we must name. It is the Crucifixion. It is a 
single figure on a plain cross ; darkness gathers over 
the earth ; the cold body, of light gray color, has the 
first pallor of death stealing over the freshness of 
life ; it stands out from the cross ; thorns crown the 
head ; the long hair hangs down on one side of the 
face, covering the ear ; the head is drooping, and the 
blood is trickling down from under the thorns, over 
the forehead, down the body, and bathing his very 
feet and the cross ; the face is of a calm and heavenly 
sweetness; no pain, no grief, but you can almost 
hear the dying lips breathing " It is finished." It is 
a single figure on a plain cross, yet it speaks the 
depth of the sentiment of that awful tragedy. 

Few artists can treat this subject without offence 
3* 



58 MADRID. 

to some sentiment of our nature. The truth, nature 
and manHness of Velazquez are all his own. Titian 
had preceded him at the Spanish court, and all his 
great pictures, with all their fine sentiment and gor- 
geous coloring, were before him. Yet Velazquez is 
as unlike Titian as an artist well could be. Without 
ideality, without the power of delineating the tender 
and the sentimental, he had the rare power of repro- 
ducing nature as he found it. He lived in the time 
of Philip III, and Philip IV, and died 1660. 

MURILLO, 

the pupil of Velazquez, was born at Seville, 161 8, 
and was only nineteen years younger than his mas- 
ter. He lived, painted and died at Seville, although 
a few of his good pictures have crossed the Pyrenees, 
yet he is only to be seen in all his grandeur in his 
own native land. There is only one fine Conception 
of his out of Spain, and this was stolen by Marshal 
Soult, carried to Paris and sold to the Louvre for 
$200,000, where it now hangs as one of the gems of 
that renowned gallery ; but in Spain there are numer- 
ous conceptions by Murillo, all of which much re- 
semble one another. Velazquez painted for kings, 
and had the selection of his subjects and the free- 
dom of his own treatment. Murillo painted for the 
Church, and was controlled in his subjects and modes 
of treatment, and confined to sacred scenes, such as 



MADRID. 59 

Conceptions, the Holy Family, and Adoration of 
Saints. Like Raphael, he reproduces his principal 
subjects in all his pictures. With differences of color, 
grouping and other details his faces of the Virgin, of 
St. Francis, and St. Augustine, are always the same. 
It is often said, that Murillo's Virgins are only good- 
looking Spanish peasants. They do lack the heavenly 
purity and the celestial grace and benignity of Raph- 
ael's Virgins, but they combine wonderful sweetness 
and tenderness. They are women, but they are 
beatified women, with a celestial light shining in their 
faces. No man, in our opinion, has ever painted a 
saint equal to Murillo. In one of his pictures the 
youthful Jesus is standing on an open Bible placed 
on a table ; St. Francis is looking up into his face 
and extending one arm to clasp him. The combina- 
tion of humility, love and adoring faith in the long- 
ing, yearning, earnest look of the saint, is something 
heavenly. There is a wealth of grace, beauty and 
coloring in his Conceptions, with the Virgin standing 
in the new moon, gorgeous in her blue robes, sur- 
rounded by clouds of golden splendor, attended by 
myriads of beautiful, joyous cherub faces. 

It is impossible to particularize the pictures of 
Murillo in this gallery. They are all charming. 
There are three different styles to be traced in 
Murillo's pictures. The Spaniards call them — first, 
the frio, his earlier style, which is of dark color- 



6o MADRID. 

ing, clear outline and good drawing ; of this style are 
his Beggar-boys, at Munich. Second, the calido, or 
warm, where his coloring is lighter and more sunny, 
and the outline less defined. Third, the vaporoso, or 
.misty, where he so mingles his colors as to throw a 
golden vapor over all his figures through which the 
outhne is dimly seen. He was a master of colors, 
and, however extravagant they may appear in detail, 
their combination is charming. 

All the originals of Raphael in the Museo are 
master-pieces. Here is his celebrated Holy Family, 
called the Pearl. It once belonged to Charles I, of 
England, was sold by Cromwell, bought by the 
Minister of Philip IV, for $10,000, which then was 
an enormous price. A large number of other pict- 
ures were bought with it and sent to Spain. When 
Philip saw this picture he exclaimed, " This is the 
pearl of my pictures ; " and ever since it has been 
called by Spaniards, The Perla. This picture is dif- 
ferent from most of Raphael's. It has not the 
golden sunset coloring usual with him. It is darker, 
with a crimson tinge of flesh color. But the light 
and smile on the face of the infant Jesus looking 
up to that of his mother, is almost an inspiration. 

TITIAN. 

Of all the galleries in Europe none can boast of 
a finer collection of Titians. He was the friend of 



MADRID, 6l 

Charles V, and Philip II, and painted for them here 
for three years. After his death Velazquez was 
deputed to purchase from Venice some master- 
pieces of this great artist. In the Museo are forty- 
three magnificent pictures by him, some very large. 
Here is the noted picture called the Gloria^ by some 
considered his master-piece. It is a sort of an 
apotheosis of Charles V, in which the Trinity, the 
Virgin, Moses and Elijah, Charles V, and his son, 
Philip II, and numerous saints appear. This pict- 
ure, the Emperor directed in his will, should be 
hung before his tomb ; and so it was until he was 
removed to the Pantheon in the Escorial. 

Time will fail to tell of all the other great worthies 
whose works are gathered here. There are sixty- 
two pictures by Rubens, with all the usual virtues 
and faults of this prolific artist. Here, as every- 
where, he revels in stout women of roseate hue. 

We cannot mention the other great foreign artists. 
Their fame belongs to other countries ; but we should 
not omit a few more who have been an honor to 
Spain. Joanes is a painter of sacred subjects. One 
of his best pictures here is a Descent from the Cross, 
which is very fine. Alonzo Cano is a painter of 
great merit. His time was mostly devoted to sculpt- 
ure. His Crucifixions in wood are found in many 
cathedrals in Spain, and they are always exceedingly 
pathetic. His wood-carvings of saints are among 



62 MADRID. 

the finest specimens of this art. There is at the 
Museo a fine painting of St. John at Patmos and a 
Dead Christ, which is a favorite subject with him. 

Zurbaran was a Spaniard, and is said to have 
been unequaled as a painter of monks and friars. 
Ribera, or Spagnoletto, was a distinguished Spanish 
artist. His best pictures are here. He was contem- 
porary with Velazquez and Murillo. He dehneated 
suffering, fortitude and martyrdom with wonderful 
vividness and power. No sentiment of tenderness 
or pathos ever entered his heart. You can see the 
martyr in his agony, despising suffering and nerving 
his quivering frame up to a lofty endurance. 

KING ALFONSO. 

Before leaving Madrid we should like to speak 
of a few m.en of note there. The king, Alfonso 
Xn, is a young man, now (1883) only twenty- 
five years of age. He has a slim, delicate frame, 
pale face, and is as unlike his mother, the ex- 
Queen Isabella, as possible. She is a very large, 
red-faced, and rather coarse-looking woman. He 
was for a short time educated at the military 
school in England, but has received most of his 
training at Vienna. He still employs tutors, and 
studies three hours a day. He is said to have 
some capacity for business, and to fulfill his kingly 



MADRID. ^i 

duties much better than King Amadeus did. His 
parentage on his father's side is considered doubtful, 
but Queen Isabella insists that this is of no import- 
ance — she is his mother. The young king, however, 
has a glorious future before him, if he is equal to it. 
If he proves himself the man to rule in these times ; 
able to grapple with the difficulties around him ; if 
he can see the wants of Spain, and will apply himself 
with all the prestige of his royal name and kingly 
office to redress them ; will labor to elevate and edu- 
cate Spain ; will spurn the priestly yoke and break it 
from the neck of his people, he will become one of 
the illustrious monarchs of the age. The people are 
ready to hail such a king, to obey him, to adore 
him, if they can have peace and a fixed government. 
The difficulties which he or any government have 
to contend with are great. There are five which we 
can mention, which press upon Spain like an in- 
cubus : 

1st. The question of dynasty. Is Alfonso the 
lawful king, or Don Carlos ? 

2d. The religious question. Shall there be a 
State religion? Shall there be liberty of worship, 
education, and of the press, and shall there be no 
connection between Church and State ? 

3d. Shall there be a monarchy or a republic ? 

4th. The financial question. Spain is hopelessly 
in debt. She cannot pay her interest. She is, and 



64 MADRID. 

has been, borrowing money for years at a usurious 
rate to keep the government going, and it is said 
that it is a great part of the business at Madrid to 
speculate in the obHgations of the government. 
Her people are taxed to the utmost, and still there 
is no possibility of paying their interest. They are 
hopelessly insolvent. They owe one billion and five 
hundred millions of dollars. 

5th. Civil war may break out at any moment 
between the Government and the Carlists. 

Most nations have only one of these great ques- 
tions to meet ; but Spain has them all pressing her 
at once, and how she is to come out of them no 
one can foresee. Such men as Gomez, Castelar and 
Martinez are leaders on some of these questions, 
and they will not be put down. The government 
may be reactionary for the present on the subject 
of religious liberty and slavery, but they can have no 
peace while these great leaders of public opinion live. 

The civil list of the king is fixed at $600,000. It 
seems impossible to support the royal court, in the 
style in which he lives, on that sum. The king pays 
court to the soldiers, parades with them, mixes with 
the people, and is affable to strangers. 

Don Antonio Canovas del Castillo, the recent 
President of the Council of Ministers, is a lawyer, 
and has worked his way up from the common peo- 
ple. There was only one Minister in the Cabinet 



MADRID. 65 

during his Presidency from the nobihty. Canovas 
is an excellent debater, and the defence of govern- 
ment measures in the Congress of Deputies rested 
upon him. He is a short man, rather stout, with a 
slight cast in his eye ; a very ready speaker, and is 
regarded as a man of high character, as that term is 
understood in Madrid. The President of the Council 
has a salary of six thousand dollars and the use of 
the elegant mansion of the President. 

He gives a reception every Friday evening. No 
invitations are given, but the foreign Ministers, the 
members of the government and Deputies of his own 
party are expected to attend. Through the kind- 
ness of the American Minister, I had the pleasure of 
attending one of these receptions. The house was 
immense. We entered from a porte-cochere, up a 
wide staircase, with beautiful shrubs and flowers on 
each side ; and were received by four servants in liv- 
ery in the ante-room, where our coats were ticketed 
and our hats given to us to carry in our hands. 

The rooms opened were a suite of three, of im- 
mense size, on three sides of an open court, in the 
centre of the house. The rooms were furnished 
with gilt furniture, covered with red satin, which was 
ranged around the sides of the room. The carpets 
were elegant, and the rooms brilliantly lighted with 
chandeliers of crystal pendants. All the Ministers 
of the government were present and all the foreign 



66 MADRID. 

Ministers. There was most hearty accord between 
our government and Spain, as was evident from the 
warm reception given to our Minister. When the 
President saw Mr. Gushing, the American Minister, 
he immediately came up to him and embraced him 
cordially and with great sincerity. The govern- 
ment had great confidence in Mr. Gushing, in his 
learning, wisdom and fairness. Probably no foreign 
Minister at the court had the influence which he 
had. This influence was not confined to the govern- 
ment, but he was held in the highest estimation by 
the other Ministers. They consulted him upon diffi- 
cult questions of international law. He was an ency- 
clopedia of knowledge, of prodigious memory, spoke 
nearly every modern language, and knew the history 
of Spain better than the Spaniards themselves. I 
was proud to see the pre-eminent position which 
he held among the foreign Ministers. As the Span- 
iards never spend money on entertainments or give 
State dinners, no refreshments were given except 
tea, coffee, cakes, wine and a few sweet drinks, 
flavored with orange, almonds and other fruits. It 
was a company of well-bred gentlemen, gathered 
from every civilized nation on the globe. 

HOUSE OF DEPUTIES. 

Before leaving Madrid we must look into the 
Gongress, where the House of Deputies meet. It is 



MADRID, 67 

a large, well-furnished room, with seats in circular 
form, facing the President's chair, and rising one 
above the other as they recede. The members 
seemed in the prime of life, a practical, gentlemanly, 
well-dressed body of men. They spoke with some 
animation, but happened to be very prosy. On each 
side of the Speaker stood a sort of sergeant-at-arms, 
holding an immense mace and dressed most elab- 
orately in uniform covered with gold lace. 

Mr. Canovas sits near the Speaker's chair, in a 
side seat, so that he can see any member who is 
speaking. The House is divided into about five 
parties, some leaders having no more than one fol- 
lower beside themselves, and some having only one 
with themselves. The most conspicuous man, after 
Mr. Canovas, is Mr. Castelar. I had imagined him 
a tall, thin, pale, student-like looking man, of negli- 
gent dress and manners. I had the pleasure of call- 
ing on him at his house and of seeing him in the 
Congress. He is a short, thick-set, florid man ; a 
very genial face, but not strong; no marked char- 
acteristics about him ; a man no one would remark 
in the streets. As I saw him he was carefully 
dressed, ready to speak that evening. He speaks 
with ease, but after most careful preparation ; all his 
fine figures are elaborately wrought out and then as 
if delivered on the inspiration of the moment. He 
prepares himself carefully, much as Mr. Everett did. 



68 MADRID. 

When he speaks the House is filled, and for hours 
you will see the common people gathering around 
the door for admission. 

He has always a most beautiful ornate essay or 
some grand original theory drawn from books or 
study, but which has never been tried. His impulses 
are always generous, noble and winning ; he has a 
wealth of illustration drawn from history. He 
speaks rapidly and firmly, and always carries with 
him the whole House, friend and foe, and frequently 
the whole body, without an exception, will rise and 
cheer him with great excitement. 

When the effort is over, the practical debater, Mr. 
Canovas, begins to pick flaws in the delicately spun 
theory ; to pull out thread by thread ; to knock 
away this leg and then another, and to ask hard 
questions. Then Mr. Castelar is at fault. He is 
an orator, but no debater. He has no repartee, no 
ability to turn the thrust. He gets confused, and 
perhaps confounded, and when the vote comes, the 
eloquent speech, which read so well, which the 
House applauded, has fallen flat, without a sup- 
porter. The practical man has destroyed the the- 
orist. 

Mr. Castelar is a native of Malaga. After a 
university education he devoted himself to a pro- 
fessorship of history in Madrid, with very small 
emoluments, but he wrote for reviews and essays 



MADRID, 6g 

on historical subjects connected with his studies. 
He is a sincere Republican, and his theory has 
always been, — and he has written much upon it, — 
that Spain should be a federal republic, after the 
model of the United States Government, which 
would allow each province to administer their own 
peculiar fueros, or ancient laws, and would harmo- 
nize the different sections of the country. He had 
other beautiful theories. But when he came to rule 
as President of the Republic, no one of his theories 
would work. Notwithstanding this, he is a man 
capable of magnetizing \h^ people. His theories are 
in sympathy with liberty and with their rights. He 
will always be the leader of reform outside of the 
Cortes, and great principles in the mouth of such a 
man will make their way among the people. He is 
a sincere Catholic of the ancient type, seeking to 
purify the Church. He is a bachelor, and lives in a 
pleasant part of the city, in a most unpretending 
way, on the third story of a flat, with his sister. As 
the Deputies receive no pay, he is dependent on his 
writings for his subsistence. But having been Pre- 
mier, although only for a few months, he is entitled 
to an annuity of $2,500. 

ROMANISM AND PROTESTANTISM. 

Of all countries in the world, Spain is the most 
profoundly Catholic. For centuries the King or 



'JO MADRID. 

Queen has received from the Pope, the title of his 
or her CathoHc Majesty. As the CathoHc rehgion 
has here had the fullest sway and has here had time 
to work out its legitimate influence, it would be 
worth the trouble of the historian and the moralist 
to trace its effect on this nation. Let us state the 
facts fairly, and leave the reader to judge whether 
the national religion has elevated or debased the 
morals of the people — has been a friend or an enemy 
to all true progress. Trace its influence in social 
life on one class only, and that in which, if in any, it 
ought to show its purifying and ennobling power — 
I mean the clergy. No religion can elevate any 
people above the lives and morals of its ministers. 
Spain has from time immemorial been cursed with a 
priesthood noted for their profligacy and sensuality. 
In the time of Queen Isabella, all orders of ecclesi- 
astics are represented as " wallowing in all the ex- 
cesses of sloth and sensuality ; " and so abhorrent was 
the evil to the pure mind of the Queen that she put 
forth all the powers of her prerogative and invoked 
the aid of her great Cardinal Ximenes, and of the 
Pope also, to abate it. Even the law was obliged to 
countenance concubinage in the clergy, and the 
ancient fueros of Castile permitted their issue to 
inherit the estates of such parents as died intestate. 
The effrontery of these legalized concubines of the 
clergy at length became so intolerable that laws 



MADRID, 71 

were repeatedly passed regulating their apparel and 
prescribing a badge to distinguish them from virtu- 
ous women. 

Although more respect is outwardly paid to good 
morals at this day by the ecclesiastics, yet it is noto- 
rious that in Spain purity of life is not expected in 
the clergy. As one gentleman in Spain expressed 
it to me, every priest is supposed to have his house- 
keeper, and her position in the establishment is well 
understood. It is, however, just to say that the 
lives of the higher dignitaries of the Church are 
more exemplary than those of the inferior clergy. 
If such is the character of the priests, it is easy to 
see how demoralizing to a people is the religion 
which can palliate or endure them. 

I have been asked, " What chance for Protestant- 
ism is there in Spain ? " A few facts and figures 
will help to answer this question. Out of 16,500,- 
000 inhabitants in Spain all but 60,000 are Catholics 
by profession. Of these 60,000, very few can prop- 
erly be called Protestants. All the power, all the 
nobility, all the education, all the money, are en- 
listed on the side of the Church. The women are 
all devotees under the influence of priests. They, 
only, attend the services. The men were educated 
Catholics and must have a religion to die by, as 
they desire to be buried in the odor of sanctity. 
Therefore they are Catholics. The serious, educated 



72 MADRID. 

and thinking men who believe in religion are Catho- 
lics of the DolHnger school, and beHeve in reforming 
their own Church, but never intend leaving it. Such 
is Castelar, who is a sincere CathoHc, while at the 
same time he repudiates many of the assumptions 
and practices of the modern Catholic Church. 

Spain has been, and probably is now, the most 
priest-ridden of all the European kingdoms; yet 
a slight comparison of figures will show that even 
Spain is making rapid strides in ridding herself of 
the priestly yoke. In 1833 there were connected 
with the Church, including monks and nuns, 175,000 
persons, or one to about ninety-five inhabitants. 
Of these, about 90,000 were prelates and priests con- 
nected with the cathedrals and parishes. In 1836 
all conventual establishments were suppressed and 
their property confiscated. This gave rise to long 
disputes with the Pope, which were at last settled 
by a concordat in 1859 by which the government 
was authorized to sell all ecclesiastical property ex- 
cept churches and parsonages, and to give in return 
an equal amount of government certificates, untrans- 
ferable, bearing interest at the rate of three per cent. 
Inasmuch as Spanish stocks are at a low ebb and the 
Government are unable to pay their interest, it is to 
be presumed that the Church will not be the gainer 
by this concordat. But now for the effect. At the 
present time there are connected with the Church, 



MADRID, 73 

as prelates and priests, less than 40,000 persons. 
This leaves but one priest to about 400 inhabitants, 
including men, women and children. There are 
forty-three bishops and nine archbishops, the Arch- 
bishop of Toledo being the Primate of all Spain. 
By the Constitution of 1875 the Catholic religion 
is declared to be the religion of the State. As 
Protestants in all countries are largely interested 
in the religious liberty question in Spain, we copy 
in full the article of the Constitution on which they 
all rely for liberty of opinion, worship and teaching : 

Article III. — The Catholic Apostolic Roman re- 
ligion is that of the State. The nation obliges itself 
to maintain the worship and its ministers. No per- 
son shall be molested in the territory of Spain for 
his religious opinions^ nor for the exercise of \\v^ par- 
ticular worships saving the respect due to Christian 
morality. Nevertheless, no other ceremonies nor 
manifestations in public will be permitted than those 
of the religion of the State. 

Such is the Constitution which is to govern the 
administrators of the law. But the law is to be con- 
strued, and it is possible to give such construction 
to the words " particular worship " and " no other 
ceremonies nor manifestations inpubUc," as will pre- 
clude any worship by Protestants except in private 
houses. The High Church party in Spain hold that 
under this article of the Constitution no house for 
4 



74 BULL-FIGHTS. 

public worship can be opened, no books hawked 
about the streets, no signs put on churches or book- 
stores, and no schools allowed. This is extreme 
and partisan construction. At the request of the 
English government, the distinguished lawyer and 
statesman who drafted this article in the Consti- 
tution, Martinez, has given a long and learned 
opinion upon it, which I was permitted to read in 
manuscript. He holds that no interference can be 
made with worship within any house or within a 
cemeter}^, but that the sale of books. Bibles and 
tracts, posting notices of public worship, signs on 
churches or depositaries for the sale of books, can 
be regulated by law, and, until such laws are passed, 
the government is to construe the Constitution and 
carry it into effect. 

CHRISTIAN AMUSEMENTS. 

Madrid is for the most part built like Paris. 
Families live in flats, with little appearance of com- 
fort by way of furniture or convenience. They are 
very economical, and never entertain by giving 
dinners. At evening parties no refreshments are 
given excepting tea and coffee, and certain sweet- 
ened drinks. The streets of the city are generally 
regular and well built. They radiate from the cen- 
tral square, Puerto del Sol, or the Gate of the Sun, 
because it was formerly the eastern gate of the city. 



BULL-FIGHTS. 75 

It is now the centre around which are built the 
hotels and the large cafes. On the eastern side of 
the city is the Prado or meadow, which is the great 
boulevard of Madrid, where all the fashion and 
wealth displays itself in the summer evenings. It is 
composed of wide avenues for driving, and sidewalks 
for lounging and sitting, about two and a half miles 
in length, and planted with trees. The trees are 
connected by trenches, and a small depression is 
made around each for the purpose of artificial irriga- 
tion. The climate is so dry that no trees will grow 
without being watered. To the east connected with 
the Prado, is a park for driving and walking, called 
Bueno Retiro. It is filled with trees and shrubbery, 
with preparations for artificial irrigation. But there 
is no lawn or grass to be seen. I have never seen 
a field of grass in Spain. The hot, dry summer de- 
stroys it. There is no hay for horses and cattle. 
They are fed on straw and grain. To the east of 
this park lies the bull-ring. Every city in Spain 
has its bull-ring. The fights are generally held from 
April till October, and on Sunday after Church. 
The Church is obliged to give its countenance to 
the bloody sport by sending a priest with the con- 
secrated host to remain in attendance in order to 
administer the sacrament in case one of the fighters 
is fatally injured. A doctor is also always present. 
The bull-ring of Madrid is a new circular amphi- 



^6 BULL-FIGHTS. 

theatre built of brick and stone, 300 feet in diameter, 
with twenty rows of stone seats, one above another. 
There is a central seat for the president of the 
ring, who is generally some gentleman or noble- 
man. There are also rows of private boxes, and a 
king's box. 

The whole exhibition is under the direction of an 
association of distinguished citizens — usually noble- 
men — who appear in their uniforms of gaudy colors 
and gay costumes, which always delights the taste 
of the Spaniard. A large gate opens into the ring, 
which is approached by a wide way, which is con- 
nected with the various stalls of the bulls in the 
rear. Each bull is confined in a separate stall, with 
food and water let down to him from above. The 
stall is opened by ropes from above. There is a 
large yard in the rear, connected with the stalls, 
where the bulls are sometimes baited before the 
fight. The bulls intended for the ring are raised in 
the mountains of the western part of Spain and 
about Seville, which is the great centre of this sport. 
The bulls, when one year old, and while in pasture, 
are tried by the herdsman, who baits them and 
defies them with his long goad. If they show the 
white feather they are converted into oxen. In 
order to remove these dangerous animals from their 
pastures to the city where the fight is to be held, 
tame oxen are used to entice them to follow into 



BULL.FIGHTS. 



77 



cages or stalls, which are moved on wheels or taken 
on the railroad. In the same manner they are en- 
ticed by the tame oxen into the yard of the bull- 
ring. The bull-fight is attended by all classes, from 
the king to the peasant, very much as was the 
Roman amphitheatre. Some come to see nerve, 
agility and courage ; some to see and feel the trag- 
edy of blood and death ; the ladies, who may not be 
supposed to be enticed by these repulsive features, 
come to see and to be seen — to display their fine faces 
and fine dresses. When a horse, disemboweled, drag- 
ging his intestines, his sides covered with blood, is 
careering around the ring, pursued and goaded by 
the bull, or when he falls quivering in his death 
agony — when the matador is goaded by his mad 
antagonist and thrown over his head, or the bull 
falls pierced to the heart — the ladies have only to 
shriek and put their fans before their faces until the 
bodies of horse, man or bull, are drawn out of the 
ring by the gay team of mules, always ready for the 
occasion. 

The exhibition of each bull consists of three acts, 
all of which are performed in about twenty minutes. 
First, at a signal by the president, the door is thrown 
open, and the bull, dazed by the glare of the lights 
dashes into the ring. He sees the picadors drawn 
up on the right of the ring on horses, each rider 
having a long pole and a short sword. The bull 



yS BULL-FIGHTS. 

makes for the first picador, whose skill is shown in 
turning his horse so as to shun the plunge of the 
bull or turn him away, or, failing to do this, to put 
his horse as a shield between himself and the bull. 
If the bull misses the first picador he dashes for the 
second, and so on. This act lasts only a few min- 
utes, but in it many horses are killed by being dis- 
emboweled. The treatment of these poor animals 
is one of the most horrid features of the ring. They 
are blindfolded, and if only wounded, the wound is 
sewn up or stopped with tow, and they are again 
driven into the ring, until death ends their agonies. 
None but the poorest animals are used for the ring ; 
but the cruelty is all the greater, as their means of 
defence becomes less. The bull is never killed by 
the picadors. If, however, he is a coward and will 
not charge, he is dispatched at once with all manner 
of hissing and derisive epithets from the crowd, 
who call him a coward, and nothing but a cow. 
The dogs are then set on him, grapple him by the 
nose and bring him down, when he is stabbed, 
or houghed — that is, the cords of his hind legs 
are cut with a long knife and he is then drawn 
out bleeding and dying. If the bull is a brave 
animal, after a few minutes* contest with the 
picador, the second act begins. At a signal from 
the president, the trumpet sounds and a body of 
young men, called chulos, or merry-makers, enter 



BULL-FIGHTS. 79 

the arena gayly dressed and with colored cloaks. 
They flaunt these in the face of the bull and entice 
him away from the picadors. ' They are exceedingly 
dexterous and skilful in escaping from the plunge 
of the infuriated animal. I was told by a gentleman 
that he had seen them, when the bull was rushing 
on them, leap between his horns and over his back. 
They will, as they spring one side of him, fix a 
little goad with a colored ribbon attached into his 
neck, one on each side and exactly opposite each 
other. 

The last trumpet announces the third act. The 
audience are impatient for the death scene. One of 
the meanest features of the whole exhibition is that, 
no matter how brave, skilful and noble the bull may 
have proved himself, or how much he has entitled 
himself to life by all laws of honor, yet he must die. 
There seems not to be a sentiment of true chivalry 
in the whole performance. Upon my suggestion of 
the unfairness of this treatment to a brave animal, 
I was answered that if the life of the bull was spared 
after a fight he would pine away and die ; that the 
excitement of the ring or the heating of his blood, 
always killed him. The third act now follows. 
Upon the signal, the matador — the executioner, 
comes in alone. He is the man of science. On 
entering, he bows to the audience, throws his cap 
on the ground, and swears he will do his whole duty. 



80 BULL-FIGHTS. 

He has in his right hand a long, slender sword, and 
in his left a red flag. After enticing the bull, with 
the flag, to make a few plunges, at the proper mo- 
ment, as he darts one side to let the bull pass, he 
strikes the fatal blow ; if he is skilful he pierces 
him to the heart between the left shoulder and the 
blade, and so quickly is it done that he draws the 
slim blade without a drop of blood, brandishing it 
aloft, while the bull in his last plunge falls, the blood 
gushing from his nostrils, and dies without a strug- 
gle. The team of mules, with flags and bells, are 
now driven in, and the bull is drawn on a low hurdle 
around the ring, amid the shouts of the audience. 

In one afternoon six or eight bulls are killed in 
this way. Frequently a picador or a matador will 
be gored and killed. He is then borne off to the 
priest, who has a room adjoining the ring, and there, 
forgotten by the noisy crowd, his soul is prepared 
for heaven, and he passes from the bull-fight to 
paradise. Such is a bull-fight, the Christian amuse- 
ment of Catholic Spain. There are more than one 
hundred bull-rings in the kingdom. 

It is the national amusement, and the great feasts 
of the Church and national holidays are signalized 
by them. It is not true that they are becoming un- 
popular, and that none but the lower classes attend 
them. The rings are among the finest erections in 
every large city, are under the direction of the best 



BULL-FIGHTS. 8 1 

citizens, and have all the prestige of a fashionable 
display. 

Bull-fights originated with the Moors of Spain. 
But in their inception there was some good reason 
for them. Cavaliers, with fine horses and a long 
spear, showed their skill and trained themselves by 
this practice for higher feats of arms. Now the 
amusement is degraded to gratifying a taste for 
blood, and is in the hands of performers who are in 
social life on a par with our prize-fighters and the 
professional bully. Centuries ago the tender-hearted 
Queen Isabella, failing to abolish this national amuse- 
ment, sought to mitigate its ferocious character. 
She was so much horrified by one of these combats 
at Arevalo, that she refused ever again to attend a 
fight unless the horns of the bull were guarded, so 
as to prevent serious injury to horses and men. 

Yet the Spaniard has his arguments by which he 
will defend this his national amusement, and it is 
fair to give him the advantage of them. He says 
every nation must have amusement, and a historical 
and traditional one, if otherwise good, is the best ; 
that there is more or less cruelty in all national 
sports. The Englishmen and American will play 
with his fish and slowly drown him ; will slaughter 
the buffalo for sport ; hunt lions and elephants for 
amusement. They shoot pigeons and pheasants 
for the fun of killing them. Common people in all 



82 MADRID. 

countries, with wives and children, attend execu- 
tions. 

All people are fond of the tragic — like to see any- 
thing and everything die game. We Spaniards in 
our day only indulge in the same propensities. We 
kill old horses outright rather than torture them in 
life. We kill bulls, which are used for beef, and in 
doing this we indulge our fondness for dexterity, 
courage and nerve. So reasons the Spaniard, and 
if we can justify ourselves it may not be difficult 
for him to defend bull-fights. 

PARTIES AND POLITICS. 

No one can understand the politics of Spain with- 
out some knowledge of the various parties and the 
form of the present government. Ferdinand VII 
died in 1833, having induced the Cortes to repeal 
the Salic law, so that females could sit on the 
throne. He had had four wives. His last wife was 
Christina of Naples. He was an old man, worn out 
by a sensual life, when he married her. He had 
had no children by his former wives. Christina was 
a far-seeing, unscrupulous, scheming woman. We 
must be pardoned for some gossip, which often con- 
tains truth and explains great public events. Queen 
Christina had two children — daughters. There are 
those who say, with much appearance of truth, that 



MADRID. 83 

these daughters were not the children of Ferdinand 
VII. After the death of Ferdinand, the Queen was 
found to have secretly adopted another husband, 
with whom she is now living and by whom she has 
a large family. There is much reason to believe 
that no drop of the blood of Ferdinand runs in the 
veins of Queen Isabella. She began her reign, while 
an infant, in 1833, — ^^^ mother, ex-Queen Christina, 
being Regent. The character of the daughter was 
no fairer in after years than that of her mother. 
She married her cousin in 1846. He has always 
been considered a weak, infirm man. No children 
were born to her until five years after her marriage 
when a sister of the present King was born. It is 
common fame in Spain that Queen Isabella is a 
woman of loose life. Had not the crown been on 
her head, no virtuous woman would have endured 
her presence. 

These things will account for the low estimation 
in which the people of Spain, of all orders, hold the 
Royal family. Domestic virtue has never been a 
quality of the monarchs of Spain, male or female, 
from the time of Ferdinand and Isabella. Ferdi- 
nand, even, had his mistresses. Charles V had his 
natural son, Don John of Austria, the hero of Le- 
panto. Philip II had his favorite, the Princess of 
Eboli. The life of every monarch since would re- 
veal a state of morals truly deplorable. Purity of 



84 MADRID. 

character in private life is not the commonest virtue 
among the men or women of the higher classes in 
Spain. It is far more common among the peasantry, 
who have felt less the demoralizing influences of 
religion, the Inquisition, and foreign gold, for the 
last three centuries, than the grandees. 



DECLINE OF ROYALTY. 

Thus it happens that this line of monarchs, once 
such absolute tyrants over a people their willing 
subjects, have now lost all hold on their affections 
and the prestige which royal descent gives in other 
nations. The Spanish people now use royalty 
only as a convenience, or necessary evil. Even 
Spain could not endure such a Queen as Isabella 
II. They banished her in 1868, and Marshal Ser- 
rano was chosen Regent till 1869, when Amadeus 
was elected King under a new Constitution. Mar- 
shal Prim was the moving spirit in all this. It was 
for the interest of the old line of the kings that he 
should be put out of the way, and he was accord- 
ingly assassinated in his carriage as he was driving 
from the Cortes. Amadeus arrived to attend the 
funeral of the man who put him on the throne and 
the only man who could keep him there. Amadeus 
was young, unfit for public business, with no char- 
acter for stormy times and no appreciation of his 



MADRID, 85 

situation. He hated all the duties of his station 
and neglected them. By his disregard of ceremony 
he offended the high and sensitive notions of the 
Spaniards and the foreign Embassadors. He would 
receive these gentlemen In his hunting-jacket and 
high-top boots. He left in 1873, when a Republic 
was declared. 



THE CORTES AND ITS PRESIDENTS. 

The Cortes appointed one after another President 
during the year 1873. There was anarchy in every 
province. Barcelona set up for herself, and the 
Basque provinces declared for Don Carlos, the 
cousin of the present King, who would be rightful 
heir provided the Salic law were In force. After 
many Presidents had resigned, Castelar wished to 
try his hand at governing. He was declared Presi- 
dent. He had been a writer and a theorist, and 
firmly believed in a Federal Republic, after the 
model of our own, as the only government for 
Spain. When he came to rule a turbulent, discon- 
tented people, he found none of the theories which 
he had advocated all his life would work. He had 
to give up, and violate every one of them, in des- 
pair. He settled the affair of the Viginius with 
America to avoid a war, while there was a moral 
certainty that Spain was In the right. When the 



86 MADRID. 

Cortes met in the latter part of 1874, after he had 
been in power a few months, they disapproved, on 
the first night of the session, of everything he 
had done. He offered to resign ; and, while they 
were discussing this question, a General of the 
forces in Madrid sent a message by his adjutant to 
the Cortes that he thought they had fulfilled their 
mission and had better dissolve. This aroused the 
Cortes to great wrath, and they began to take meas- 
ures to punish this officer, who assumed to control 
them. While this excited discussion was going on, 
the aide-de-camp again appeared, saying the General 
was desirous of an answer to his demand. Acci- 
dentally a pistol of one of his guards fell and went 
off. The whole Cortes, thinking an army was upon 
them, fled in dismay and never met again. The 
same night a proclamation was put forth from some 
one, no one knows from whom, that the Cortes was 
dissolved and Marshal Serrano would assume the 
control of the government, under the name of Presi- 
dent. Thus between night and morning the govern- 
ment was changed, without any visible power, by a 
mere paper proclamation. Marshal Serrano ruled 
till 1875, when another Junta suddenly, between 
night and morning, proclaimed, in pretty much the 
same way, Queen Isabella's son, Alfonso XII, 
King of Spain, with Canovas at the head of the 
government. 



MADRID, 87 

We have mentioned these details to show the 
working of parties in Spain and methods of over- 
turning the government. The poHticians are divided 
into numerous parties, there being about five 
now in the Cortes. They have their names — the 
Conservatives, Moderates, Liberals, etc. At the 
time of our visit, Canovas had the leading of more 
than half of the Cortes. Castelar was at the head 
of one party, consisting of himself and one other, 
and one party had only himself as a follower. The 
object of parties in Spain is not a change of admin- 
istration, as in England and America, but it is the 
overthrow of the government ; their opposition is 
conspiracy, and they are plotting against each other 
constantly, not only for control of government, but 
for a new one, with new principles and a new Con- 
stitution. With such plotting and counterplotting 
going on, no one can tell what may happen to- 
morrow. Any Captain-General, under favorable 
circumstances, may overturn the government in a 
night. Every General in the army has perjured 
himself over and over again. Conspirators are not 
punished, for the party in power know they may at 
some time be conspirators themselves, and they 
treat each other leniently. 

THE PRESENT GOVERNMENT. 

The people are now heartily tired of revolutions 



88 MADRID. 

and they seem disposed to give the present King a 
fair trial. The Monarchists and Conservatives sup- 
port him. Since his accession, a new Constitution 
has been adopted in place of the one of 1869. Some 
of the principal features of it are as follows : The 
law-making power is the Cortes, with the King. The 
Cortes is composed of a Senate and a Congress, 
with equal powers. Senators are of three classes — 
1st, those in their own right, such as sons of kings, 
grandees who pay a certain amount of taxes, certain 
generals, bishops, etc. ; 2d, Senators appointed by 
the Crown ; 3d, Senators chosen by electors who 
pay a certain amount of taxes. The Congress is 
composed of Deputies chosen by electors in all the 
49 provinces in proportion of one to every 50,000 
inhabitants. They must be 25 years of age. The 
Deputies cannot hold State offices or have pensions 
or a salary. They must meet every year. The 
King can suspend the Congress at any time, but 
another must be elected within three months there- 
after. The King appoints the President and Vice- 
President of the Senate from among its members. 
The King is not responsible, but his Ministers 
are, for all acts of government. He cannot marry 
without the approval of the Cortes. Don Alfonso 
XII is declared King, with succession to his chil- 
dren. The Ministers appear in either House. They 
consist of the President of the Council of Ministers, 



MADRID. 89 

who is the Premier, and eight Ministers, each pre- 
siding over a separate department of the State. 

In some respects, Spain resembles the federal 
government of the United States. There are 49 
provinces, each of which has a provincial legislature 
and a civil government. Each province, by pre- 
scriptive right from time immemorial has certain 
local rights called fueros, which they have fought to 
preserve for centuries. They generally relate to 
freedom from taxation and privileges of that kind. 
These provincial assemblies have, like our States, 
certain rights guaranteed to them, and, like our 
States, they administer their own local laws and 
also such laws passed by the central government as 
they are subject to. The effort of the central gov- 
ernment is to destroy all these fueros or prescriptive 
rights of the different provinces, so far as they ren- 
der taxation and other burdens of the general gov- 
ernment unequal, and to make the provincial legis- 
latures merely administrators of the general laws of 
the Cortes. 

AN ELECTIVE MONARCHY. 

The Cortes of Spain presents one of the features 
of Constitutional government in all its history. 
This is the principle of self-government brought into 
Spain by the Goths long before any Parliament 
existed in England. It has been a bright, golden 



90 MADRID, 

thread all through the history of Spain. This prin- 
ciple, almost destroyed by Charles V and his de- 
scendants, has again reasserted its authority and will 
yet be the salvation of Spain. Through all the 
history down to Charles V, the Cortes, composed 
of the three estates — the nobles, the clergy, and the 
representatives of the towns — insisted on their right 
to elect the King, and they demanded the oath from 
him. In Aragon, upon the election of a King, he 
was addressed by the President of the Council or 
Cortes, who remained covered, in these words: "We 
who each is as good as you, and who together are 
greater than you, make you our King on condition 
that you preserve our privileges and liberties ; if not, 
no." Then they elected a Grand Justice, who was 
to be placed above the King and decide upon all 
disputes between Cortes and King. We never cease 
to admire this feature in Spanish history. It has 
been the very bulwark of their liberties, the one 
grand rock they have clung to when all other sem- 
blance of liberty has been swept away by kingly 
and clerical tyranny. From the time of Charles V 
to the time of Isabella II, despotic power, backed 
by the Church, has been trampling out every spark 
of liberty in Spain ; but this old Gothic principle of 
Gothic independence — the Cortes — has at last saved 
the nation. What the nation now needs is a stable 
government, peace, and the education of the people. 



MADRID. 91 

THE LAW AND LAWYERS OF SPAIN. 

In many respects the Government of Spain is 
federal, like that of the United States, subject to 
the Central Government of the King and Cortes. 
There are forty-nine provinces, with a provincial 
governor and legislature elected by the communes, 
of which we shall first speak. The commune is the 
unit of authority, and consists of electors, and as the 
people are mostly gathered in cities and towns, com- 
munes are confined to these. Every commune of 
at least sixty in number has a legislative body 
called ayuntiamento, consisting of from twenty-one 
to twenty-eight members, presided over by a presi- 
dent, called the alcalde. It is very similar to the 
municipal authority of our cities with the mayor at 
their head. In large towns and cities there are ap- 
pointed assistant alcaldes. The entire municipal 
government, with authority to levy and collect taxes, 
and to preserve the peace, is vested in this ayuntia- 
mento. The members are elected every two years. 

Out of this communal representation, or ayunti- 
amento, springs the provincial parliament of each of 
the forty-nine provinces of Spain, the members of 
which are chosen by the ayuntiamentos. 

The provincial parliaments are invested with certain 
political powers with which the Cortes cannot inter- 
fere except in cases where their action shall contra- 



92 MADRID. 

vene some general law of the kingdom. A most in- 
teresting feature of the laws of Spain is the fueros, 
or the ancient rights and privileges belonging to dif- 
ferent kingdoms, provinces, towns, and cities. For 
example, Biscay is free from conscription, taxes, and 
stamps ; the King and Queen of Spain are only- 
Lord and Lady of Biscay. These fueros the differ- 
ent provinces have always maintained with great 
tenacity, and they have always stood in the way of 
a strong central, consolidated government. It has 
been the past and is the present policy of the General 
Government to abolish the fueros and to bring the 
kingdom under one uniform code of laws, each part 
bearing the same burdens. Don Carlos is the cham- 
pion of the party in the different provinces who hold 
to the ancient fueros. The laws as to real property, 
descent, and wills differ in each province. Primo- 
geniture as to lands has been abolished, but not as 
to titles. This will be a death-blow to the aristoc- 
racy, as an aristocracy without property is a mere 
name. All transfers of real property mortgages and 
all deeds affecting real estate must be recorded in 
the same manner as in the United States. Foreigners 
can hold real estate, provided they register the same. 
Spain has more codes and more compiled law than 
any other kingdom, and it is worthy of note that her 
civil law and the administration of it has been far in 
advance of her politics. 



MADRID. 93 

There are no less than seven different codes or 
compilations of the laws of Spain, beginning with the 
Fuero Jusgo of the Goths, as early as the year 480. 
There is a commercial code in force in Spain very 
similar to the French code of 1807. Probably the 
earliest published code of mercantile law in the world 
was issued at Barcelona in 1494, called the law of the 
sea. It was the law of maritime Europe for cen- 
turies. 

We are surprised to find what a large body of law 
has been published in Spain, and how much labor 
has been bestowed upon it by the jurists of the 
kingdom. Numerous faculties exist in the different 
universities for teaching and lecturing upon these 
codes, and all barristers must take a degree from 
some one of these faculties before they are admitted 
to the bar. 

For the administration of justice the whole of 
Spain is divided into districts and circuits, very 
much as the United States are divided for federal 
courts. 

1st. There is one supreme court of appeal of uni- 
versal jurisdiction, which sits at Madrid. It has a 
chief president and three branches of eight judges 
each. It has jurisdiction of all cases in civil and 
criminal law, and has authority to prosecute various 
corporations, ecclesiastical and political, and to en- 
tertain writs of certiorari to other courts. 



94 MADRID. 

2d. Territorial courts, which have the same juris- 
diction in their respective territories. 

3d. Courts of the 1st instance, to hear certain 
classes of minor offences in each district. 

4th. Municipal courts, similar to our justices* and 
mayors' courts, which take cognizance of cases not 
involving more than fifty dollars and petty offences. 

There is a judicial officer, called justice of instruc- 
tion, who investigates criminal cases and prepares 
them for trial. All the chief judges are appointed by 
the crown and receive a salary. There are various 
ecclesiastical courts and courts for the army and 
navy. There is a court to adjudicate claims against 
the government, and a special court for the trial of 
the newspaper press. The bar is divided into bar- 
risters and attorneys ; no one can act in both capac- 
ities. The barrister must have received an academic 
education, and a degree of licentiate at law at a uni- 
versity. This degree is not required of the attorney. 

Both judges and barristers are amenable to pros- 
secution and fine for dereliction in duty. The 
judges and barristers are men of learning and ability 
and would do honor to the bar of any country. 
There is care enough and lawyers enough in Spain to 
save the country, and it is our opinion that if the no- 
bility and the politicians were equal to the judges and 
the lawyers, the country would be redeemed. There 
is a jury sitting with the judge in criminal cases, and 



I 



MADRID. 95 

the attempt has been made recently to Introduce 
the trial by jury in all civil cases. This has been 
strenuously resisted by the people themselves on 
the ground that they are not willing to give their 
time to settle other men's quarrels. They have not 
been educated to the jury system. It has not in 
their eyes the prestige of once having been the 
bulwark of the liberties of the people, and they take 
a common-sense view of it. For two good reasons 
they reject it when applied to civil matters. First, on 
the ground that substantial justice is more likely to 
be done by the decision of one wise judge accus- 
tomed to evidence than by that of twelve men not 
so accustomed ; and, secondly, on the ground that 
twelve men should not be called to pay the penalty 
of a disagreement between two. Let us pay a visit 
to one of the courts. In the Calle de Atocha is the 
Audiencia, or the Supreme Court of Madrid and its 
district. It is in the old building which was once 
the Newgate of Madrid. This court corresponds to 
a Circuit Court of the United States. The court 
room is large and hung with red curtains. At one 
end, on a platform behind a table, sit six judges 
elderly and scholarly-looking men with black silk 
caps on their heads and wearing black gowns trim- 
med with gold lace around the wrists. Next to the 
judges' platform a portion of the room is railed off, 
within which seats with desks in front of them are 



96 MADRID. 

provided for the barristers. No person except two 
barristers and the clerk are inside the railing. On 
the wall opposite the judges hangs a good picture 
of the crucifixion. This I found in every court 
room and was told it was a universal custom. At 
the time of my visit the barristers were arguing a 
case, and spoke sitting with large briefs before them, 
but with no law books. They were well dressed, 
spoke without wig or cap, with great fluency and 
earnestness. When the court had heard enough, the 
presiding judge rung a bell and said the argument 
was ended. Immediately the barristers gathered up 
their papers and bowing to the bench put on black 
caps and passed out. All the spectators are requested 
to retire and leave the judges sitting on the bench, 
who bow to them as they leave. The title of the 
chief judge has heretofore been Regent and he is by 
the new constitution a life senator. Among the 
barristers are many learned and eloquent men, such 
as Alvarez, Bugallal, de Muro, Martinez who drew 
the new constitution, Silvela Issasa, de Arriela 
Accirado and Cortina. 

The civil laws of Spain have not been codified, 
but a commission has been appointed for this work 
and their report is now ready to be acted on. The 
criminal law is codified. The common law and the 
decrees of the Council of Trent form part of the 
common law of the country. 



THE ESCORIAL. 



THE ESCORIAL. 



97 



Situate about thirty miles northwest from Madrid 
is the Escorial, which has been called the eighth 
wonder of the world. It owes its existence to super- 
stition and is a monument of folly, but of folly of 
the sublime order, and is none the less interesting on 
that account. Charles V had directed, in his will, 
that a tomb worthy of his fame should be erected 
by his son, Philip II. On the loth of August, 1557, 
Philip fought the battle of St. Quentin, with the 
French. This was St. Lawrence's day, who had 
been broiled about thirteen centuries before, at 
Huescar, in Spain — a martyr to the truth. In the 
midst of the battle of St. Quentin, when panic- 
stricken with fear, Philip raised his supplications to 
St. Lawrence — as did the warriors of old, when sore 
pressed, to Jupiter and Mars — and vowed, in case that 
saint should give the Spaniards the victory, to repay 
him by a monument worthy of the benefit bestowed. 
The Spaniards conquered. When his wars were 
over, Philip, in order to fulfill his vow and the direc- 
tions of his father's will, to indulge his monkish pro- 
pensities and his real taste for architecture and the 
arts, and as an excuse to withdraw himself from the 
cares of his court at Madrid, set himself, as the last 
act of his life, to build the Escorial. He was the 
chief architect, and in it he was to gratify his 
5 



9^ THE ESCORIAL. 

gloomy, ascetic nature, and build a fitting residence 
where he — half king, half monk — might end his 
days. 

This great edifice he located at the foot of the 
lofty and barren mountains of Guadarama, which 
tower above it in grim and fitting grandeur. In- 
stead of constructing a magnificent Gothic cathe- 
dral, embodying the religious sentiment of the age 
and of all ages, with a crypt for his royal father, and 
calling it St. Lawrence, he built this strange mixture 
of cathedral, palace, tomb and monastery — an incon- 
gruous mixture, where each part mars the effect of 
the other. In fulfillment of his vow, the pile was to 
be in the form of St. Lawrence's gridiron standing 
bottom upward. The four towers are the legs ; the 
royal apartments are the handle ; the temple and 
the cloisters fill up the framework and are built in 
lines across a large parallelogram, leaving courts 
within to represent the interstices of the holy instru- 
ment. It is 744 feet from north to south and 580 
from east to west. It cost about fifty millions of 
dollars. It is built of dark granite, with no architect- 
ural ornament to relieve the externals. It has 
11,000 windows, 80 staircases, 73 fountains, 1,860 
rooms, and was intended rather for the convenience 
of the two hundred monks than for architectural 
effect. The windows are small and give the appear- 
ance of an immense factory. It was commenced in 



THE ESCORIAL. 99 

1563 and finished in twenty-one years. Philip had 
the gloomy satisfaction of living in it as a monk 
and among the monks just fourteen years to a day 
thereafter. 

It has a grand situation, elevated, buttressed 
against the lofty mountain which towers above it 
and far away in a broken line to the north ; while 
on the other side the view over the plains below, 
toward Madrid, is extensive and impressive. Stretch- 
ing from the walls to the plain below are gardens 
filled with ponds and fountains and laid out in the 
stiff French style. 

A hurried walk through this immense pile would 
consume a whole day. The cloisters of the monks 
would be of no interest. The palace for the resi- 
dence of the royal family is the usual wilderness of 
rooms, suite after suite, filled with gilded furniture 
of silk and satin. The best pictures have been car- 
ried to Madrid and now are in the Museo. There 
is one thing, however, in these royal apartments 
worthy of note. There is a most magnificent array 
of tapestry, apparently Gobelin, filling room after 
room and suite after suite ; it would seem almost a 
mile in extent. The walls of the rooms are entirely 
covered with it. Here are the rooms of Don Carlos, 
the unfortunate son of Philip, who is said to have 
fallen in love with his mother-in-law, the queen. 
He hated his father and was hated by him in return, 



100 THE E SCO RIAL. 

and Philip is said, but not on good authority, to 
have put his ill-fated son to death secretly. 

The Temple, as it is called, is the best part of the 
Escorial. It is 320 feet long, 230 feet wide, and the 
top of the dome over the centre 320 feet high. 
There are three lofty naves stretching from end to 
end, without any object in the centre to break the 
view. The coro, or choir, which is usually in the 
centre of the cathedral, a position which destroys the 
effect the immense size ought to produce, is here put 
at one end, in a gallery over the grand front entrance. 
This entrance is closed by massive doors, which are 
never opened except to receive a royal personage, 
dead or alive. The columns are very massive, four 
of them support the central dome, which stretches 
up grandly, like St. Peter's, 320 feet. These four 
central columns are pentagonal and are about 30 
feet in circumference. At the end opposite the 
choir is the high altar, which is approached by red 
marble steps extending across the whole church. 
There is over the high altar a gilded tabernacle, 
which has been erected in place of one of bronze 
covered with gold, which was a marvel of beauty and 
was destroyed by French soldiers, who took it for 
gold. It was considered one of the finest works of 
art in the world. The screen behind the high altar 
is 93 feet high, and is one mass of beautiful gilded 
ornaments, carving, statuary, and of all kinds of 



THE E SCORIA L. 10 1 

marble and orders of architecture. The roof of the 
whole Temple is frescoed, and the bright blue color- 
ing stands out in pleasing contrast with the severe 
simplicity of all other parts. The proportions of 
the whole are perfect, and the impression, as the 
eye wanders from one end to the other, through 
these massive aisles and up through the lofty naves, 
is one of severe grandeur. 

Adjoining the grand altar and opening upon it by 
a door is a small chamber, where Philip died. He 
was accustomed to live in one of the monk's cells 
above ; but when he became too weak to attend the 
services and death approached, he was brought down 
into this little chamber, in order that his dying eyes 
might, with their last gaze, rest on the host on the 
altar. His death is thus described by Ford : 

" His lingering end was terrific in body and mind. 
He lay long, like Job, on a dunghill of his own filth, 
consumed for fifty-three days, like Herod, by self- 
engendered vermin. The crucifix he held in his 
hand when he died was the same with which Charles 
V had expired. He was haunted with doubts 
whether his bloody bigotry — the supposed merit of 
his life — was not, after all, a damning crime. His 
ambition over, a ray of common sense taught him 
to fear that a Moloch persecution breathed Httle of 
the spirit of Christianity." 

Thus died the man whose minions under the 



102 THE E SCO RIAL. 

Duke of Alva had carried fire and sword over the 
Netherlands ; who by the same instrument had 
planned with Catherine de Medici the hideous mas- 
sacre of St. Bartholomew; who had used the cells, 
the rack and fire of the Inquisition, in the name 
of religion, to gratify the cruel superstition of his 
nature. 

At the right of the high altar is the Relicario, 
where this great gatherer of relics kept the precious 
treasury of dead men's bones. He had here 7421 
relics, among which were eleven whole bodies, 300 
heads, more than 600 legs and arms, 346 veins, and 
1,400 pieces of teeth, toes, etc. They were kept in 
beautiful plated shrines until the French tumbled 
them out promiscuously, and they have since been 
difficult to label. 

The tomb of the kings of Spain is a room beneath 
the high altar. You descend by polished marble 
steps, carrying a light before you, and are ushered 
into a room, octagon in shape, about forty feet in 
circumference, and about the same in height. All 
is cold, black marble around you. Urns of polished 
marble stand in rows around. The monarch who 
dies reigning is placed on one side and the consorts 
on the other. The line of dead monarchs here be- 
gins with Charles V and ends with Ferdinand VII, 
the reputed father of the ex-Queen Isabella. Here 
stand many empty urns, which time is sure to fill. 



THE ESCORT A L. IO3 

unless republicanism shall break the royal line of 
kings. The monarchs who precede Charles V lie 
buried in different capitals in Spain. The great St. 
Ferdinand at Seville; Ferdinand and Isabella, and 
their daughter, Crazy Jane, mother of Charles V, at 
Grenada. Charles having abdicated in favor of Philip, 
in 1557 went to Yuste, and lived the life of a hermit 
till September 21, 1558, when he died and was there 
buried and remained for sixteen years, when he was 
removed to the Escorial. 

He inherited a strain of insanity from his mother, 
and transmitted it to his son Philip. The lesson is 
impressive to stand in this dimly-lighted, sombre 
tomb, and see before you all that remains of mon- 
archs who once ruled over the fairest parts of Europe 
and the New World, from the Danube to the Pacific 
ocean. 

The French took from the Escorial all the silver 
and gold ornaments, but they could not carry away 
the massive granite of its walb, and so they have 
done comparatively little injury. 

The pictures of the Escorial were removed in time 
to save them, and now they grace the walls of the 
Museo at Madrid. Among these were Raphael's 
Pearl and the Gloria of Titian, under which Charles 
V lay buried sixteen years at Yuste. In the time 
of Philip the cloisters of the Escorial contained two 
hundred monks, and Philip had his place among 



104 THE E SCO RIAL. 

them. His stall is shown in the coro, where he 
chanted vespers with the monks, and where he was 
kneeling when he received, without a smile, the 
news of the battle of Lepanto, fought by his natural 
brother, Don John of Austria, and which saved 
Christendom from the infidel. The monks were 
disbanded in 1836, and now parts of this immense 
pile are used for schools. Let us state the fact 
fairly and leave the reader to judge whether the 
national religion has elevated or debased the morals 
of the people, has been a friend or an enemy to all 
true progress. 



TOLEDO. 

About fifty-five miles south of Madrid lies Toledo, 
once the city of kings and priests. The Goths, the 
Moors, and the Christians in turn made it their 
capital, and embellished and defended it. It lies on 
the River Tagus. In approaching it, coming from 
Madrid, we strike the Tagus sixteen miles above 
Toledo, and follow the river down through a fine 
valley, which in any other land would be a garden of 
fruitfulness. But the route from Madrid is through 
treeless plains, apparently barren. The soil is good 
for grain, but cultivation is miserable ; no farm 
houses, no pastures, no cattle, no orchards, no grass 
are seen. 

As we approach Toledo it stands forth grandly, a 
city set upon a hill. It is situated on the northern 
end of a high, rocky knoll, jutting out from the hills, 
which extend far away to the south, rising as they 
recede, till they reach the mountains of Toledo. On 
the north side these hills break abruptly down into 
a beautiful plain, over which hangs the city. 

The Tagus, which is a fine, large river, coming 
from the east, strikes this line of hills near their 
northern terminus and breaks through them. Fol- 



I06 TOLEDO. 

lowing a depression in the hills, it has cut a deep 
channel through them in the shape of a horse-shoe, 
and emerges on the western side. It entirely sepa- 
rates the northern end of this rocky promontory 
from the hills behind to the south. 

Upon this hill, thus separated from the others by the 
river on three sides, and with a beautiful plain stretch- 
ing away to the north, on the other, is situated 
Toledo. It was evidently chosen for the ease with 
which it could be defended. The river, which separ- 
ates it on the east, south, and west from the hills 
behind, forces its way through a rocky, wild, roman- 
tic gorge, hundreds of feet below the city. Along 
the northern side of the city, facing the plain, across 
this bend, from the river above to the river below, 
a lofty wall with heavy battlements is built, looking 
proudly on all the plain below. The city was thus 
completely defended on three sides by the deep 
gorge of the river, and on the other, at the open end 
of the horse-shoe, by walls and battlements. Like 
Constantinople, it is far more impressive viewed at 
a distance than from within. 

We cross the Tagus, into the city, on the massive 
arches of an old Roman bridge. It is a grand old 
structure even now. It has two wide spans, and is 
called the Puerte de Alcantara, or the Bridge of the 
Bridge. The view down the wild gorge of the river, 
with the rocky face of the mountain on one side, and 



TOLEDO. 107 

the heights of the city, crowned with the castle, 
churches, and lofty buildings, on the other, is one of 
the finest city views in the world. To get from the 
river into the city we are obliged to ascend by a 
long, zigzag road, passing through the ancient walls 
by a lofty gateway built by the Goths. 

THE PLAZA AND THE PEOPLE. 

This leads us into the square called the Zocodover, 
which is the only open place in the city where the 
inhabitants can walk for exercise. It is only 300 feet 
square. Here the bull-fights and the autos da fe 
were held in former times ; and here now, in the 
afternoon, the people walk up and down in their 
long cloaks, the upper classes on one side, and the 
common people on the other. There is an air of 
haughty gentility about the Toledoans, as if they 
were conscious of high descent. Although clothed 
in rags, which are covered by his long cloak, almost 
every Spaniard claims noble blood in his veins. He 
is poor, yet haughty and proud. In cathedrals, 
churches, palaces, galleries, in every public office or 
building, the officers will accept politely a little sil- 
ver for their services. Beggars abound in almost all 
cities in Spain, and in Toledo particularly they are a 
nuisance. The cathedrals are filled with them. 
Toledo once had 200,000 inhabitants ; it now has 
17,000. The streets of the city are irregular, too nar- 



I08 TOLEDO. 

row for a carriage, winding in all directions, up hill and 
down, and so confused that no stranger can find his 
way through them. The houses are tall, and the 
streets between them look like foot-paths and are 
filled with all sorts of filth. Houses and streets 
seem to have been built for the twofold object of 
keeping out enemies and the heat. 

PAST GLORIES. 

Toledo was once the capital of the Goths. Here 
reigned Roderick, the last of the Goths ; and here, 
on the river banks, they will show you the baths 
where he became enamored of the daughter of 
Count Julian, whose romantic and sad story ended 
in the subjugation of all Spain by the Moors and the 
death of Roderick. Here dwelt Charles V in all 
his magnificence in the Alcazar, the great palace 
and castle of the city. Here lived also Philip H, 
who adorned the city with churches. Here ruled in 
princely magnificence the cardinals of Spain; among 
them Mendoza, who, in the time of Ferdinand and 
Isabella, was called the Third King, and Ximenes, 
one of the most distinguished characters of Spanish 
history. Here is the most magnificent cathedral of 
Spain — not so large as the cathedral of Seville, but 
far more artistic and grand ; not more beautiful or 
perfect in its plan than that of Burgos, but larger 
and more elegantly finished. 



TOLEDO. 109 

The Archbishop of Toledo is still the primate of 
all Spain. Madrid belongs to his see. But the glory- 
has departed from this once-renowned city. Decay 
is written on all its buildings, walls, battlements, 
churches, monasteries, and even on the faces of the 
people. It had once 30 churches and chapels gath- 
ered around the cathedral, 14 convents, 23 nunneries 
and coUege-s, and 9 hospitals. These buildings were 
large, and were erected high up on the walls of the 
city, in conspicuous places; but now most of the 
nunneries and monasteries are closed, and the build- 
ings are tumbling to ruins. 

MANNERS AND CUSTOMS. 

Toledo has no business ; scarcely a person is seen 
in the streets, excepting priests and women. The 
cathedral, with its priests and attendants, seems 
to be the only business place in the city, and the 
only visible means of support to the town. There 
are no hotels worthy of the name, no wells, no cis- 
terns or water in the place. Water is brought up from 
the Tagus on the backs of men or donkeys and sold 
in jugs. We can easily imagine that cleanliness is 
not a fault among Spaniards. They will drink water 
all day long. It Is sold at all the places of resort and 
at railway stations by women. Even at midnight, 
when the train stops, you hear the shrill cry, " Agua ! 
agua!" But the use of water stops here. The 



no TOLEDO. 

Spaniard never uses water externally. The clergy- 
used to teach that cleanliness was a sinful indulg- 
ence, and Southey states that Saint Eufraxia en- 
tered into a convent of 130 nuns, not one of whom 
had ever washed her feet, and the very mention of 
a bath was abomination. Isabel, the daughter of 
Philip II, vowed she would not change her shift 
until Ostend was taken. The siege lasted three 
years, and the garment attained the tawny color 
which was afterward called and is now known as 
Isabel. Since the monks have been driven out, it is 
right to say the Spanish ladies have not considered 
personal cleanliness and moral purity so antagonistic 
as they once did. At Toledo the Moors once had 
water-works on the Tagus, with immense wheels, 
which pumped water into the city, but the Spaniards, 
centuries ago, allowed them to go to decay, and 
now, with the swift-flowing Tagus at their feet, 
the whole city buys its supply of water from the 
earthen jars. 

Madrid and Malaga are the only cities in Spain that 
we remember which are well supplied with water ; but 
there is not enterprise enough, even in these cities, 
to supply the dwellings with it. No Spanish house, 
inn, or hotel has any external conveniences, no yards 
or open spaces in the rear. With no water or drain- 
age, the house is the receptacle of all vileness, and 
in Toledo is this the case above all other places. In 



TOLEDO. Ill 

order to endure the house one night we were obliged 
to hire the parlor of the inn and have a bed put in it 
as far away as possible from the intolerable smells, 
and sleep with the window open to the street. 

Next to the cathedral and the Alcazar, one of the 
most interesting relics of this dilapidated city is the 

FRANCISCAN CONVENT, 

called San Juan de los Reyes, built by Ferdinand 
and Isabella in commemoration of a great victory at 
Toro. It has a commanding situation on the south- 
west side of the city, high over the gorge of the 
Tagus and looking far down its winding valley. It has 
been one of the finest specimens of the Gothic style in 
the world, and though for centuries it has suffered 
by the hands of the invader, particularly the French, 
still there are beautiful gems seen in the old ram- 
bling buildings, in stairways, balustrades, arches and 
windows. These bits left here and there show that 
once it was erected after the most florid style of 
Gothic architecture. Cardinal Ximenes lived here 
with his reformed monks. The outer walls of the 
church are hung with long ancient and rusty chains 
of immense size, which were taken from the Chris- 
tian captives rescued from the dungeons of Ronda 
when that fortress was taken from the Moors in 
1485. Here they have hung for centuries as a 
votive offering to the Virgin Mother. 



112 TOLEDO. 

To see Toledo properly we must go around it and 
through it. If we walk around it outside of the 
walls, from the river above the city to the river 
below we see its lofty position, and we see also 
along on its walls immense monasteries, nunneries 
and churches, deserted and going to ruin. The 
walk up through the gorge of the river is exceed- 
ingly romantic. There are along the banks many 
ancient mills, which have existed from the time of 
the Moors without any change. The bed of the 
river is so deep that scarcely anything of the town 
can be seen from its banks. As you walk through 
the city the silence is oppressive. It is the city of 
the past. You see a few women going to church, 
many priests in broad-brimmed hats and black flow- 
ing robes, and now and then a soldier and a water- 
peddler. There is no life, no business, no vehicles. 
But still all is so ancient, so singular, so confused, 
that you are constantly interested. You can trace 
in the old walls and in the buildings the successive 
works of Goths, Romans, Moors and Christians. 
To the artist this old, dead city must be a perfect 
treasure. Curious gems of Gothic, Moorish and 
Christian architecture meet you at every turn, in 
old doors, windows, towers, battlements, bastions, 
arches and bridges. All these are so located and com- 
bined with the beautiful natural features as to make 
this decaying city of the past a perfect delight to 



TOLEDO. 113 

the artistic eye. The only edifices which are of much 
present interest are 

THE CATHEDRAL AND THE ALCAZAR. 

Like most cathedrals in Spain, this is so closely sur- 
rounded by buildings that you can get no good 
view of it except from above. It has one fine and 
finished tower. The body of the cathedral has five 
naves, which are very stately and effective, and it is 
entirely surrounded by side chapels founded and 
named after some of the most distinguished persons 
in the history of the country. The north doors are 
of brass and most beautifully wrought, and almost 
equal to the famous doors of the baptistery of Flor- 
ence made by Ghiberti. The south doors are very 
lofty and are made of carved wood. The cathedral 
is 404 feet long and 204 feet wide, and the roof 
is supported by 84 piers. The stained-glass win- 
dows are among the finest in Spain. The choir is 
in the centre of the church, and is one mass of 
most elaborately carved mahogany. In it there 
are about a hundred stalls for the clergy and the 
singers. The stalls are in two rows, one above 
another. The upper row is ornamented by scenes 
from Scripture history, from Adam down, carved in 
the wood. The lower row of seats is decorated 
by scenes from the life of Ferdinand and Isabella. 
This carving is in the very highest style of art. 



1 14 TOLEDO. 

The high altar to the very top of the nave is com- 
posed entirely of beautiful work in wood and mar- 
ble. 

This cathedral has also a famous Virgin made of 
black wood, very ancient. It seems to be a cardinal 
principle with Spaniards, that the older and the 
uglier the Virgin the more worthy is she of divine 
honors. What she lacks in beauty of person is sup- 
plied by tinsel, brocade, pearls, necklaces, rings and 
trinkets without number. Fancy how the lowly 
virgin of Nazareth or the suffering mother at Jeru- 
salem would have looked decked out in all this 
trash ! They have here also a slab of marble on 
which the Virgin, in one of her flights from heaven, 
once alighted. It is railed off from the crowd and 
cased in wood, but you may put your finger through 
the bars and touch it, as all the faithful do. The 
inscription in Latin before it is : " We will worship 
in the place where her feet once stood." 

And so they do worship the Virgin Mary in this 
cathedral, as well as in all other parts of Spain. 
After visiting all the cathedrals of Spain, one cannot 
resist the conviction that the worship of the Virgin 
Mary, or rather of her image, is the religion of the 
country. It is a strong impulse of our nature to 
appeal to one of like passions with ourselves, of 
deep sympathy with us, who is supposed to have 
power to help and to save ; and the priests of Rome 



TOLEDO. 1 1 5 

have taken advantage of this quality to introduce 
the worship of the Virgin. The CathoHc clergy- 
have taught, for ages, that we get justice alone from 
Christ ; that if we want mercy, love and sympathy, 
we must go to the Virgin Mary. It is thus, that 
this suffering, sympathizing mother of God has 
turned the hearts of a whole nation away from the 
worship of the God-man. They have kept in the 
background the great fact of revealed religion — that 
the Saviour of the world was at once the sympathiz- 
ing, suffering man, bone of our bone, flesh of our 
flesh, and yet God over all. They do not direct the 
people to Him for sympathy, mercy and grace, as 
well as for divine aid. The acknowledgment of 
this one great truth — the mediation of the God-man 
— has given Protestantism its strongest hold on the 
minds of rational men; the neglect of it has led, in 
Catholic countries, to the worship of the Virgin 
Mary as its substitute. 

The associations which cluster around this cathe- 
dral relate to some of the greatest characters of 
Spanish history. '* The Archbishop of Toledo, by 
virtue of his office, Primate of Spain and Grand 
Chancellor of Castile, was esteemed, after the Pope, 
the highest ecclesiastical dignitary in Christendom." 
He was the Cardinal of Spain. His revenues were 
princely. He led into war a larger number of vas- 
sals than any other subject. He often ruled the 



Il6 TOLEDO. 

kingdom as regent and led the armies. Here Men- 
doza and Ximenes sat on their archiepiscopal thrones 
and directed the destinies of Spain in the noblest 
era of its history. Here Mendoza lies buried in the 
same chapel with the ancient kings. The Pope and 
the King of Spain are Canons of Toledo, and the 
King is fined if he is absent from the services on a 
certain feast-day of each year. 

The Alcazar is an immense structure, dating from 
the tenth century. Charles V repaired it and lived 
there. For hundreds of years it has been deserted 
by the royal family. It is now converted into a 
military college, where about i,ooo young men are 
being trained for service in the army by thirty-two 
professors. Most of them are sons of noblemen 
and they are a fine, manly-looking set of young men. 
Each wears a long blue overcoat, red pants, a glazed 
cap, and a sword dangling at his side. They are 
the only signs of life in this old, dead city. Every 
Sabbath they march through the city to the largest 
church, each with a musket, with the senior officer 
at the head of the column, and a fine band of music. 
They fill the whole body of the church. A com- 
pany, with their muskets grounded, stand each side 
of the high altar with their commander in front of 
the altar. Mass is then said for about fifteen min- 
utes, during which time the band plays the " King's 
March.'* The music reverberates grandly through 



TOLEDO. 117 

the lofty arches and over the vast crowd. When 
the host is elevated, the music is changed to a 
minor key, and the whole body of cadets kneel, with 
their muskets glistening above their heads. All is 
over in twenty minutes, when to the sound of music 
they file out again and return through the winding 
streets, in military order, to the castle. 

As I saw the ceremony, crowds of people attended 
to hear the music and see the sight, but no one — 
soldiers or spectators — gave any heed to the services. 
This ceremony well shows the relation of the peo- 
ple of Spain to the Church. They will go to the 
church on feast days or on great occasions, hear the 
music, kneel before the host, pray to the Virgin 
Mary, and cross themselves when they pass her 
image. Religion is a necessary form to the Span- 
iard, because he is educated to feel the power of the 
Church over him. It is convenient for him in sick- 
ness or old age. 

There is only one thing about Toledo which re- 
minds one of the nineteenth century. About a 
mile below the city, on the plain by the river Tagus, 
is situated the famous manufactory of 

TOLEDO BLADES. 

Here are made all those Spanish swords which 
are so famous for their polish, temper and beautiful 
workmanship. The works are in an immense rect- 



1 1 8 TOLEDO, 

angle, and employ hundreds of men. To the Span- 
iard this is the most wonderful object around To- 
ledo. To us it was the least. To the Spaniard, whose 
eyes had ever been familiar with grand old cathe- 
drals and ruins of bygone centuries, a manufactory 
was a marvel. To the American, whose ears are 
familiar with the sound of the spindle and trip- 
hammer, the rare works of ancient genius are the 
wonder. 

We lingered on the walls of this old capital until 
the sun went down, casting its last gleams upon its 
lofty heights, upon the Alcazar and the proud old 
cathedral tower, and threw long shadows into the 
gorge of the Tagus. A kind of fascination held us 
here on the high ramparts of the eastern wall until 
the full moon arose and in turn threw its soft gleams 
on castle, and ramparts and far down into the valley 
of the river. It brought out in full relief the bas- 
tions and towers which stood, like grim sentinels, 
over the weird scene, mourning, if ought inanimate 
e'er mourns, over the departed glories of this once 
mighty city. They had looked down into these same 
valleys filled in turn with the legions of Rome, the 
swarms of the invading Goths, the armies of the 
fiery Moor and the hosts of Christian warriors. 
They had beheld the deeds and glory of Wamba, of 
Charles V, of Mendoza and Ximenes, men mighty 
in Church and State. They had beheld the bloody 



TOLEDO. 119 

rack of the Inquisition and the fires of the auto-da- 
fe. They seemed to say : " All are gone — Romans, 
Goths, Moors, Emperors, Cardinals, with all their 
pomp and power, — while we remain. Man dies, but 
we live. He is mortal; we are immortal." 

So reason the gloomy towers of Toledo by moon- 
light, as they watch over dead kings and cardinals. 
So reasons the man who knows no hereafter. 



LA MANCHA. 

Many a lover of Don Quixote, or Don Quijote, 
as the Spaniards call him, would go to Spain for the 
sake of viewing the scenes where the famous knight 
and his doughty squire gained immortal renown. 
On our way from Toledo to Granada we pass 
through the province of La Mancha, which the 
genius of Cervantes alone could have made famous. 
It is a treeless country, its soil impregnated with 
salt, with a few squalid villages, with a race of poor 
but industrious people, of whom Sancho Panza is a 
good specimen. At Menzenares we are in the cen- 
tre and in the capital of the province of La Mancha. 
Here we are within a few miles of the little inn, 
Venta de Quesada, where Don Quijote was knighted, 
and occasionally we pass one of those wind-mills or 
a flock of sheep which furnished an opportunity for 
the display of his martial prowess. 

The peasants of Spain have the most implicit be- 
lief in the existence of this renowned knight. He 
is a reality to them. His marvelous adventures, 
and those of the Cid, are the great fund of song and 
story at the village inns of Spain. About fifty miles 



LA MANCHA, 121 

further on we reach the station of Baeza. Here 
there are mines of lead and copper, worked in the 
same manner as they were under the Romans two 
hundred years ago. Here Scipio the younger fought 
a great battle with Asdrubal, about 200 B. c. Here 
you may see the ruins of the palace of Himilce, the 
wife of Hannibal. But the crowning honor of this 
place is that it is the birth-place of St. Ursula, who 
so heroically ended her life at Cologne with her 
11,000 virgins, whose bones we have many of us 
seen there. It is generally bad taste to spoil a good 
story, but I must be allowed the explanation of this 
legend given by Ford, which is that it arose from a 
mistaken reading of an old manuscript which was. 
" Ursula et XI. M. V.," meaning eleven martyred 
virgins. 

From Toledo to Granada our way runs nearly 
south, crossing the headwaters of the Guadiana 
and the Guadalquivir. We strike the latter at 
Menjibar, from whence it flows southwesterly to 
the Atlantic, passing in its course Cordova and 
Seville, two of the most beautiful cities in Spain. 
It is not the beautiful, clear, poetic river, some- 
times described in song. In winter and spring it 
is swollen and turbid, cutting away its banks and 
overflowing them. In summer it dwindles to a 
shallow stream, winding through wide, treeless 
meadows. 



122 LA MANCHA. 



ON THE DILIGENCE. 



At Menjibar we leave the railroad, which is very 
circuitous in its route to Granada, for the diligence. 
If we wish to see real Spanish life, customs, dress, 
and the people as they live, we must take the dili- 
gence through the small villages, stopping at the 
posadas and ventas, as the village inns are called. 
On a fine day, with beautiful mountain scenery, 
mounted on the driver's seat, with six horses or 
mules, each having bells, the diligence is the very 
poetry of traveling. One postilion rides one of the 
leaders from eight In the morning till eleven o'clock 
at night, — eighty miles without a rest. It is said 
that these postilions, before the days of railroads, 
rode from Madrid to Granada, a journey of two 
hundred miles, in two days and a night. We had 
another attendant who seemed to be a conductor, 
and went the whole journey. Another, called the 
Mayoral, drove the team, having reins only for the 
wheel horses. He would drive only from one sta- 
tion, where horses were changed, to another, and 
always came with and left with his team, and had the 
entire charge of them in the stables and on the road. 
He carried with him a bag of stones, which he would 
throw with great skill at the leaders which his whip 
would not reach. The driver talked and shouted to 
the horses all the way, and at a certain sound made 



LA MANCHA. 1 23 

by him at the foot of a hill they would break into 
a run. About every eight miles, the driver, with 
his horses, would leave, and a new driver and a 
fresh team would take their places. The postihon 
carried a horn slung around his neck, with which he 
heralded our approach to every village. 

Leaving Menjibar, we wind for a short distance 
along the banks of Guadalquivir, which we soon 
cross on an iron bridge, and make our way up out 
of the valley on to the high, treeless plains, which 
are bare and muddy in winter and hot and parched 
in summer. 

THE SPANISH POLICE. 

For fifteen miles we see not a tree, not a fence, 
not a field of grass, scarcely a house or a person 
except the guards who patrol the roads. These 
guards civiles are stationed on most of the traveled 
routes of Spain, for protection against banditti. 
They are sometimes mounted and always well 
armed, dressed in military uniform, with a cocked 
hat. They are found at every railway station, in 
every village, and at regular distances upon all the 
roads. They are fine-looking men of good character. 
We found them miles away from any dwelling, two 
together, patroling the roads over which we passed, 
always armed with a musket. They have rendered 
traveling safe in all parts of Spain. 



124 LA MANCHA. 



SIGHTS AND SMELLS. 



A ride of fifteen miles over plains which have 
every appearance of barrenness, gradually rising, 
brings us to the ancient city of Jaen, which is beau- 
tifully situated among the hills. It is the key to 
Granada from the north ; mountains rise around it 
in every direction. It has a cathedral, a number 
of fine churches and some famous relics. As we 
have no partiality 'for old bones, teeth, finger nails, 
locks of hair, or old rags, we spend no time upon 
them. Here we made our first trial at a venta, or 
country inn. As we were to travel till eleven o'clock 
at night without anything to eat, my guide brought 
me a most delicious morsel of veal, fried in vinegar 
and garlic, which, with bread, was all the venta af- 
forded. We were contented with oranges and bread 
for our day's provision. Our fellow-travelers here 
provided themselves for the day — bread and sausages 
seasoned with garlic and fried in garlic. During a 
shower we were obliged to ride in the coupe, shut 
up with two of them. Every few minutes they 
would partake of the sausage and politely offer me 
some. After indulging in this food for some time 
they became thoroughly impregnated with the odor. 
They breathed garlic from within; their pockets 
emitted garlic from without. Garlic was every- 
where. The air was filled with it ; and such garlic 



LA MANCHA. 1 25 

who can describe ? Shut up in the close coupe with 
these two persons the odor was terrific, and sea-sick- 
ness is a comfort to what I felt. I was obliged to 
open the window, put my head out and pretend to 
look at the beautiful scenery. At Jaen we are about 
fifty miles from Granada. Our road lies through 
winding valleys, along which mountain torrents rush 
in winter and the beds of which are often used as 
roads in summer. We ascend gradually through pass 
after pass, where, hand to hand, the Moors and the 
Christians fought over every inch four centuries ago. 
We are now among the Sierra Susanna, which bound 
the Vega of Granada on the north. Their lofty 
snow-capped heights look down into one of the 
most fruitful and lovely valleys under the sun. 

THE APPROACH TO GRANADA. 

As we emerge from the mountain valley and de- 
scend into the Vega, a new world bursts upon us. 
The flow of the waters, diverted from the mountain 
streams for irrigation, is everywhere heard like 
music. You exchange sterility for verdure of liv- 
ing green ; the orange, lemon, and fig trees every- 
where abound, filled with bloom or fruit ; the air 
is fragrant with flowers ; beautiful villas setting back 
from the road, surrounded by gardens, begin to 
appear. 



126 GRANADA. 

Through this wealth of living verdure, the road, 
broad and lined with trees, makes its way up to 
Granada, like the approach to the city of a great 
king. The night is upon us before we reach the 
gates of the city. Two old Moorish towers frown 
from above the gates as we enter through the mass- 
ive w^alls. We wind our way through the narrow and 
dimly-lighted streets until we reach the eastern side 
of the city, and ascend through a grand avenue of 
trees to the Hotel Washington Irving, which is 
just without the walls of the ancient fortress of the 
Alhambra. 



ANNIVERSARY OF THE TAKING OF THE ALHAMBRA. 

We arrived at the Hotel Washington Irving on the 
first day of January. Here Mr. Irving lived until 
he took up his abode in one of the rooms of the 
Alhambra, which he most graphically describes in 
his tales. 

We were awakened on the morning of the second 
of January by the ringing of all the bells in the city 
below us, and by the bell on the tower of the Al- 
hambra above us. The streets were filled with peo- 
ple shouting and laughing as if some grand occasion 
had dawned. We soon found that the 2d of Janu- 
ary, 1492, was the day on which Ferdinand and 
Isabella received the keys of Granada from Boabdil, 



GRANADA. 12/ 

entered the gates of the Alhambra and planted 
their standard on its battlements after a weary siege 
of ten years. The great object of their lives was ac- 
complished on that day. They had expelled the 
Moor, who for eight centuries had held the fairest 
portions of Spain. The Alhambra was the last 
stronghold. Internal dissensions among the Moors, 
and gunpowder and cannon on the part of the 
Christians, had done the work. It was a holy war, 
which enlisted the chivalry of Europe. The fight- 
ing Cardinal Mendoza was the first to plant the 
flag of Isabella upon the walls of the Alhambra. 
The second day of January has ever since been 
a gala day in Granada. It is their Fourth of 
July. 

On this day there is a grand celebration at the 
cathedral in this city, after which all the people, from 
city and country, rich and poor, men, women, and 
children, soldiers, peasants, artisans, resort to the Al- 
hambra, and spend the day in gayety and frolic. We 
followed the crowd early in the morning down from 
the hotel through a beautiful grove of elm trees — 
brought from England and presented by the Duke of 
Wellington — into the city and into the cathedral, not 
knowing what we were to see. Soon we heard music 
without and the moving of a crowd. Through the 
great doors the band filed into the cathedral, playing 
a grand march, followed by the Archbishop, clad in 



128 GRANADA. 

robes wrought in gold by Queen Isabella for the 
grand Cardinal Mendoza ; after him came a long line 
of the clergy of the cathedral, covered with their 
sacerdotal vestments ; then came the alcalde and the 
members of the city government ; and, lastly, one of 
the seven captains-general of the army of Spain, with 
a company of soldiers completely armed and in 
splendid uniform. 

The alcalde, or, as we would, say, the mayor, car- 
ried in his hands the ancient flag of Isabella, made of 
yellow silk, with the arms of Castile inwrought upon 
it. The grand procession, at the sound of martial 
music ringing through the lofty arches, marched 
down the great aisle to the high altar, the host 
being borne before it. The clergy advanced up to 
the platform on which the high altar stands, and 
which extends across the cathedral. They take their 
seats on each side of the altar ; the alcalde, bearing 
the flag, also ascends the platform and stands before 
the high altar, without uncovering his head. After 
a short prayer and some incense, the procession, at 
the sound of music, preceded by the elevated host, 
before which every one kneels, enter by a side door 
from the cathedral into the chapel of Ferdinand and 
Isabella. This is a beautiful, large chapel, highly 
decorated, extending across one end of which is the 
high altar. Immediately in front of the high altar, 
and in the body of the chapel, stands the mausoleum 



GRANADA, 1 29 

of Ferdinand and Isabella, and of their daughter 
Crazy Jane and her husband, Philip the Handsome. 
Their tombs consist of a marble erection, most ele- 
gantly wrought, about six feet high, and large enough 
on the top for the recumbent statues of these four 
monarchs. The marble figures are said to be good 
portraits. Ferdinand looks treacherous and severe, 
as he was ; and by his side, lies Isabella, looking 
serene, true, and pure, as she was. The faces of 
Crazy Jane and her inconstant husband are averted 
from each other. Underneath this mausoleum, in a 
little room below, lie the mortal remains of these 
illustrious personages. The procession comes filing 
in and passes the marble statues. The clergy pro- 
ceed to the platform as before and take their seats ; 
the alcalde and the civic authorities also ascend the 
platform ; the alcalde hands the flag to the youngest 
of them ; the music strikes up for a moment, and he, 
with his hat on, takes three steps forward toward the 
altar, on to the field cloth once used by Ferdinand 
and Isabella ; he then waves the flag three times 
toward the altar; the music sounds again, and he 
waves the flag three times to the clergy ; the music 
sounds again, and he turns and advances toward the 
dead king and queen lying in marble, and waves the 
flag, in solemn salute, slowly and solemnly three 
times toward them. It is a most impressive scene, 

the pageant is beautiful, the associations are inspir- 
6* 



130 GRANADA, 

ing. Drooping over the tombs are the battle flags 
of the warrior king and queen. The altar-cloths 
and priestly vestments made by Isabella, her missal, 
her sword, her crown and sceptre, made of gold 
and silver, her jewel box, are also in full sight on 
this day. 

The procession then, in the same order, proceed 
to the cathedral again, where a short mass is said 
and a long oration pronounced by a priest. The 
crowd then make their way up the hill to the gate of 
the Alhambra. We follow them through the grand 
archway called the Gate of Justice. On the great 
horse-shoe arch above the gate is cut in stone the 
open hand as a talisman against the " evil eye," and 
on an inner arch below the hand is the key, the sym- 
bol of power. Through this grand gateway we are 
ushered into the great Plaza de los Albiges. The 
whole plateau of the Alhambra, all the halls, the 
courts, the gardens, and the tower, were filled with a 
crowd of people from the surrounding vega and the 
city, all dressed in the picturesque costumes of the 
country, and many of them peculiar to the city or 
village from which they came. All the ladies wore 
lace vails or mantillas on the head, and the peasants 
and poorer classes had silk handkerchiefs of bright 
colors. Not a bonnet was to be seen There was a 
band of music in one of the large plazas. There 
were stands for the sale of fruits, sweets, and water. 



GRANADA. I3I 

but no wine was sold. There was no sign of drunk- 
enness, all was hilarity, singing, and laughing. The 
great crowd seemed to delight in wandering through 
the courts, halls, chambers, baths, and towers of the 
Moorish palace. This is the only day of the year 
when water fills the fountains of the Alhambra. The 
little lakes in all the courts were glistening with the 
cool streams from the Sierra Nevada. The Fountain 
of Lions was throwing forth its streams from twelve 
open mouths. Everywhere there was a gentle mur- 
mur of falling waters. Amid these scenes the 
people, fond of the beautiful, with a taste for sensu- 
ous delight, wandered till sunset. 

The point of greatest attraction seemed to be 
the Torre de la Vela, which is a tower overlooking 
the city on the extreme end of the Alhambra. The 
top of this tower is a large area one hundred feet 
square. On this tower, in the time of the Moors, 
hung the silver bell which was rung every five min- 
utes during the night. It was heard for thirty miles 
across the Vega, and by it was regulated the distri- 
bution of water which irrigated all the lands. The 
silver bell has gone, but another is in its place. 
Every boy had to have a pull at the rope. Every 
maiden who rings this bell on this gala day is sure of 
a lover and a husband within a year. It is useless to 
say. Its notes rang out one continuous peal from 
morn till dewy eve. 



132 THE ALHAMBRA, 

The day closed with an entertainment at the 
theatre, representing the taking of Granada. Here 
Ferdinand and Isabella, with their attendants and 
most renowned knights, all armed and mailed, ap- 
pear on one side, and the Moorish warriors on the 
other. The Moor insults the Virgin and the Chris- 
tians the Great Prophet, challenges are exchanged, 
and renowned knights engage in single combat. It 
ends with the delivery of the keys of Grenada by 
Boabdil to Isabella. It is a most absurd attempt to 
portray the scenes and characters of the great siege. 

THE ALHAMBRA. 

The Alhambra was to Granada what the Acropo- 
lis was to Athens, or rather what the Citadel is to 
Cairo. It was the castle to awe and defend the city, 
and also the palace of its kings. The leading char- 
acteristics of the Moors, who built it, were chivalry 
and sensuality. The Alhambra is but the outward ex- 
pression of these two qualities. As the architect- 
ure which adorned the Acropolis was the expression 
of the taste and cultivation of the Athenians, and as 
the grand old cathedrals were the expression of the 
religious sentiments of awe, reverence and lofty con- 
ceptions of the pious devotees who erected them, 
so the Alhambra is the home of a warlike, volupt- 
uous and cultivated race of kings. Like the great 



LA MANCHA. I33 

temple of Karnac, it was added to and beautified by- 
each successive monarch, until it became one of the 
wonders of the world for its grace, beauty and extent. 

The city of Granada has now about 75,000 inhabi- 
tants. Under the Moors it had 400,000. It lies at 
the east end of a valley or vega, which is thirty miles 
long and about twenty-five miles wide. The city is 
at the foot of the mountains, on the eastern side of 
this amphitheatre. The Alhambra is built on a spur 
of these mountains as they break down into the val- 
ley. It rises immediately over the city 350 feet. 
The hill is about one-half of a mile long, and in its 
broadest part 750 feet wide. It descends on three 
sides abruptly into the valley below. 

The plateau is surrounded by a wall thirty feet 
high and six feet thick, which in some places is built 
up from the ravine below. The wall is not built of 
stone, but of gravel, tamped hard, with occasionally 
a course of flat tile. Sometimes a little lime is found 
mixed with the gravel, but generally there is none. 
The walls have now stood for six centuries, and 
though they are slowly crumbling away, yet they 
will stand in that climate for centuries to come. 
There is no stone work in all the walls, towers or 
palaces of the Alhambra. The plateau has been de- 
scribed in shape as like a grand piano, or a leg of 
mutton, with the apex toward the city. In the rear 
it joins itself to the rising hills, which stretch east- 



134 LA MANCHA, 

ward and upward until they culminate in the snowy 
heights of the Sierra Nevada, 12,000 feet above 
the sea. Standing above the walls at different points 
were once fifteen or twenty large, square towers, 
each large enough for a prison, or the residence of 
a Sultana and her family, or a troop of soldiers. 
The French, in 1808, blew up eight of these. 

If we ascend one of these, the Torre de la Vela, 
which rises directly over the city, on the very sum- 
mit of the fortress, we shall get a magnificent view of 
the Alhambra, the city, the vega, and the surround- 
ing mountains. As we look down on the Alhambra 
from this height we are surprised at the insignificant 
exterior of the buildings. They are all diminutive, 
most of them one story high, and none over two. 
The roof, covered with the pottery tile of the coun- 
try, gives them the appearance of ordinary dwel- 
lings. This common and even shabby external 
appearance to buildings which are most gorgeously 
fitted within, is frequently seen in Eastern cities. 
The same thing will be noticed in Cairo and Damas- 
cus, where the approach to the finest residences is 
often through a barn-yard. 

The western part of the Alhambra, looking down 
on the city, was devoted to barracks for soldiers and 
large squares for the exercising of troops, while the 
magazines and tanks for water were built under- 
neath. This end of the Alhambra was separated 



LA MANCHA. 1 35 

from the grounds devoted to the royal residence by 
a high wall. There were formerly a winter and a 
summer palace, and numerous mosques and other 
buildings. Ferdinand and Isabella destroyed many 
of these to make room for churches and convents. 
The winter palace was destroyed by Charles V to 
make room for a grand palace for himself, which he 
commenced but never finished. It is about 200 feet 
square, built of white stone, overloaded with orna- 
ment. Before the roof was put on, the monarch's 
means failed, and subsequently an earthquake shat- 
tered its walls and gave it an ill omen. 

The summer palace is left standing. But for cent- 
uries it was neglected and pillaged by every one, 
made a pen for sheep and goats, and a rendezvous 
for vagrants. Mr. Irving called the attention of the 
civilized world to this vandalism, and awakened the 
Spanish Government to save what was left of this 
monument of the taste, wealth and luxury of a once 
great nation. Now the Government have an agent 
here, Senor Contreras, who w^ith great taste is en- 
gaged in slowly restoring the buildings to their for- 
mer state. He is also making a private fortune by 
the sale of models. Those who buy had better pay 
for them when safely delivered in America. The 
summer palace which now remains is a series of low 
buildings built around patios or courts which are 
connected together by arches extending from one 



136" THE ALHAMBRA. 

court to another. Some of these courts are large. 
The Court of the Myrtles is 150 feet by 80, and has 
a lake 30 feet long, filled with fish and surrounded 
by myrtles, cypress and orange trees. 

The Court of Lions is 116 feet long by 66 feet 
wide, with the famous fountain of the twelve mar- 
ble lions in the centre. Others are much smaller, 
filled with orange trees, flowers and fountains. 
Around these courts are corridors, beautifully paved, 
supported by small, graceful, palm-like marble pil- 
lars. Sometimes two or three columns stand to- 
gether. Around the Court of Lions are 128 of these 
columns. Opening on these corridors and courts 
are the principal rooms of the palace, generally on 
the ground floor. The arched doorways, and the 
graceful columns supporting them, are each a picture 
of elegance. In many cases the eye catches a 
charming glimpse, through a long vista under arches 
supported by the palm-like columns, from one court 
to another and another, filled with flowers, trees 
and fountains. The exterior walls being six feet 
thick, the windows appear like port-holes. Often 
the view through them reveals a lovely picture of 
green hillsides, far across the valley and to the dis- 
tant mountains. 

Many large public rooms open on these various 
courts, such as the Hall of Judgment, the Hall of 
the Abencerrages, the Hall of the Two Sisters, the 



THE ALHAMBRA. 137 

Hall of the Ambassadors. Then there are the 
rooms of the harem, the baths, the mosque, the pri- 
vate rooms of the king and the boudoir of the Sul- 
tana. One of the most remarkable things about the 
Alhambra is the exquisite ornamentation of the 
rooms and corridors. The floors are of variegated 
tile, and each room wainscoted four feet from the 
floor with tile of the most brilliant colors. The ceil- 
ings are vaulted and covered entirely with stucco 
work of most beautiful patterns, among which 
are the stalactite and honey-comb patterns. This 
stucco work was put up in blocks, yet so perfectly 
done that no trace of the joining of the blocks can 
be seen. In the Hall of the Sisters there are 5,000 
of these blocks used in the vaulted ceiling, yet 
after five centuries no imperfection can be seen, 
and It has the appearance of being one solid block 
of marble. These vaulted ceihngs are exquisitely 
ornamented by colors of red, blue and gold, and 
all done with mathematical accuracy. The capitals 
on all the pillars were covered with gold, on red or 
blue ground. Grace and elegance are everywhere. 
Beauty is the genius of the place. There is nothing 
massive or solid but the exterior walls of the for- 
tress. As it has been said, the Alhambra was made 
to keep heat and enemies out, and to keep women 
in, and every hall, every tower, every court, every 
boudoir has a tale of love or blood connected with it. 



138 THE ALHAMBRA. 

BOABDIL AND COLUMBUS. 

There are a few places in the world where you can 
stand and read great events in the history of a na- 
tion with more vividness than the pen of any his- 
torian can describe them. The scenes of the nation's 
glory and shame are before your eyes. Such a place 
is the Acropolis at Athens ; such a place is the Coli- 
seum of Rome ; such another is the Alhambra. As 
you stand on the tower of the citadel the most stir- 
ring and adventurous scenes of the siege of Granada 
are within view. The beautiful vega is before you, 
surrounded by mountains in every direction. The 
castles on their lofty peaks, and the defiles between 
them, have been the theatres of those thrilling ad- 
ventures between Moor and Christian, so well de- 
scribed by our own countrymen — Irving and Prescott. 
This charming valley — one of the gems of Spain, 
and the Alhambra — ^the last stronghold of the Moor, 
were the prizes of their conflict. Standing on the 
tower you can see each of these at a glance. The 
grand amphitheatre, almost perfectly level, filled 
with groves of olives, figs and oranges ; with beautiful 
villas rising here and there among them, is seen at 
a glance. The Darro, fed by the snows of the 
Sierra Nevada, meanders through the plain, and 
artificial irrigation, planned by the Moors, reaches 
every acre of land, bringing the waters from the 



THE ALHAMBRA, 1 39 

mountain springs. Here they raise three and four 
crops annually. 

This second day of January is the anniversary of 
the departure of Boabdil, the last of the Moorish 
kings, called by the Moors Boabdil the Unlucky. 
On the 2d of January, 1492, he, with his family and 
his mother, the famous Ayeshah, departed from this 
fortress of his forefathers. On the left, in the plain 
by the Darro, you will see the place where he gave 
up to Ferdinand and Isabella the keys of the Al- 
hambra ; and farther to the south the road winds to 
the top of a hill, which is called " The Last Sigh of 
the Moor." Here the dethroned monarch turned to 
view the fortress where his ancestors had lived for 
two hundred years, and the beautiful vega which 
they had held by their swords for eight centuries. 
As he took his last look at this paradise, the home 
of his fathers — as he saw the cross of the Christian 
floating over the walls of the Alhambra — as he was 
forever turning his face from them toward the sands 
of Africa — no wonder he wept. As he had lost it all 
by his folly, no wonder his mother reproached him, 
saying, " You do well to weep like a woman for that 
you did not defend like a man." Fallen like Luci- 
fer, he turned from the paradise inherited from his 
ancestors, and purchased by their valor, to the arid 
deserts from whence they came eight centuries be- 
fore. He died at Fez, in Morocco, killed in a skir- 



140 THE ALHAMBRA. 

mish between certain petty tribes. Some of his 
descendants are said to be beggars at the doors of 
the mosque in Fez at this day. 

While the Moor was thus ascending the heights 
of the Alpujara, weeping as he went, there was 
another scene being enacted in the gorgeous Alham- 
bra. Cardinal Mendoza had planted the standard of 
Isabella on the high walls. The great Gate of Justice 
was flung wide open, and the war-worn veterans of 
the Christian army, with Ferdinand and Isabella at 
their head, were filing through. King, queen, 
knights and soldiers range through these fairy-like 
halls, amazed at the magic beauty, such as their eyes 
had never seen. The great cardinal erects the altar 
in one of the beautiful corridors, and with the king 
and queen kneeling before him, solemn mass and 
thanksgiving to Almighty God is said for the great 
victory over the infidel, and that the mission of their 
lives is accomplished. But another scene was en- 
acted in the Alhambra on this second day of January, 
1492. Christopher Columbus, an Italian, an enthus- 
iast, was in the court of the queen, and had been urg- 
ing her to commission him, under her flag, to pass 
from the Pillars of Hercules across unknown seas to 
look for unknown lands and a way to the Indies. The 
thoughtful queen heard his arguments and was in- 
clined to believe. But where was the money to come 
from ? The ten years' war had exhausted her treasury. 



THE ALHAMBRA. I4I 

Columbus turned slowly away, and next day de- 
parted to seek other aid. The queen could look 
out from the lofty Alhambra and trace his way 
across the vega. Hardly had he left, when her 
heart smote her. Like a woman, but a great 
woman, she changed her mind, and in so doing 
changed the destinies of the world. She sent a 
messenger in haste after Columbus to recall him. 
Standing on the Alhambra, about two leagues away, 
you can see a little hamlet called the Bridge of 
Pines, the scene of many a battle between Chris- 
tian and infidel. Here the messenger overtook 
Columbus. He returned, and it is said that in the 
Hall of the Ambassadors, or, as some say, at Santa 
Fe, ten miles distant, the compact between him and 
the crown was signed, by which he was to bear the 
title of Admiral of Spain, become governor of all 
lands he should discover, and be entitled to one- 
tenth of all profits realized. The contract was 
shamefully broken by Ferdinand, and the great dis- 
coverer was allowed to die in poverty, if not dis- 
grace. From whence were the means to defray the 
expense of this strange expedition to come ? 

Said the noble queen to her incredulous husband : 
" I will pawn my jewels to raise the funds." Isa- 
bella raised the money, but it cost the crown of 
Spain to discover America only eighteen thousand 
dollars. The box in which the jewels of the queen 



142 THE ALHAMBRA. 

were kept is now at the cathedral in Granada. It is 
of silver, about one foot long, six inches high and 
six inches wide, with an oval top. It is beautifully 
ornamented with animals, vines and flowers, wrought 
in raised gold and silver-work. On this anniversary, 
the second of January, this box, with all her other 
personal effects, such as her flag, sword, prayer-book, 
are displayed in the royal chapel where she lies 
buried. For a few francs we were allowed to handle 
them with becoming reverence, especially the box, 
which once held the jewels offered to be pledged for 
the price of the New World. Looking down from 
this tower over the Alhambra, your mind goes for- 
ward for twelve years from the grand scenes above 
described. You see across the vega a sad and 
mournful train slowly approaching Granada. It 
winds its way up the heights and files through the 
gates of the Alhambra, bearing the body of the 
great Queen to this lofty fortress as her last resting- 
place. Twelve years more and you see another 
funeral cortege coming through the defiles of the 
distant mountains, bearing the remains of Ferdinand 
to rest beside his queen. The Alhambra, the scene 
of their greatest triumph, is now their tomb. They 
desired to be laid here to their final rest. 

In their will a large sum was left to build a royal 
chapel to support its services, and to erect a 
mausoleum worthy of their fame. Their remains 



GRANADA. 1 43 

rested in the chapel of the Alhambra until the royal 
chapel and mausoleum were finished, when they were 
removed to the cathedral. 



GRANADA, 

The Alhambra, as a palace, was commenced in 
1248, by Ibn Tahmar. The word Alhambra means 
red, or light. Its walls and towers at a distance 
have a reddish appearance, and probably this fact 
was the origin of the name. It would accommodate 
forty thousand troops, with ample provision for 
water and stores for a long siege. 

The Spaniards were profoundly thankful to the 
Duke of Wellington for his great services to them 
in driving Napoleon's troops from their borders. 
They wished to reward him, but without much cost 
to themselves. They therefore offered him the 
dilapidated fortress of the Alhambra. It would have 
been a fine thing for them had the Duke taken it 
and spent millions in restoring it. But the man who 
conquered at Waterloo was not to be taken at the 
Alhambra. He declined the generous offer. The 
Spaniards then most handsomely presented him 
with a magnificent estate on the Vega, about ten 
miles from Granada, called the Soto de Roma. It 
contains about four thousand acres of land, and its 
annual rental is about $25,000. This the Duke 



144 GRANADA, 

accepted, and the estate is now held by his family. 
Not accepting the gift of the Alhambra, he did 
the next best thing for it, he sent thousands of 
English elms to be planted in the gardens to the 
south of the walls. Here, nurtured by the springs 
from the mountains, they are now growing in great 
luxuriance. The road from Granada to the fortress 
winds up through them. As far as we have seen, this 
is the only grove of fine shade trees in all Spain. 
Hundreds of acres are embraced in this park of 
English elms. To one accustomed to the verdure 
and trees of America and England, this is a re- 
freshing and charming spot, after traveling over 
the bare, brown and treeless plains of Central 
Spain, where you never see a field of grass, or a 
shade tree, and never hear the song of a bird. 

Here in this park is a shady retreat from the heat 
of the sun. The sound of running waters is heard 
all the day long, and the song of the nightingale 
during the hours of the night. The climate of 
Granada, to one accustomed to the rigors of a north- 
ern climate, is charming. The burning heat of a 
southern latitude, which parches other parts of 
Spain, is here moderated by a high altitude of three 
thousand feet, and by proximity to the snow-clad 
tops of the Sierra Nevada. 

In most seasons of the year, especially in winter, 
the air is balmy and bracing, and the clear azure 



GRANADA. I45 

above rivals the blue sky of Italy. The Vega is a 
marvel of fertility, is always green, always in bloom, 
and abounds in gardens and orchards, filled with 
oranges, fi-gs, citron, pomegranates, and mulberry. 
Surrounded by such a country, Granada is therefore 
one of the most flourishing cities in Spain. The 
Moors and Jews have stamped a commercial char- 
acter upon the city. One street, the Zacatin, is filled 
with Moorish shops or stalls, like a bazar in Cairo, 
where goldsmiths and silversmiths and dealers in 
silks and fancy articles display their wares. Here 
the Moorish doors, arches, windows and ornaments 
are seen in all the houses as they appeared four 
centuries ago. 

The Cathedral of Granada, although compara- 
tively modern, and a departure from the Gothic 
style, is a noble structure. It was commenced in 
1529. Located in the city which witnessed the 
grand triumph of the Christian arms over the infidel, 
and the deliverance of Spain from a foreign foe, 
patronized by Charles V and Philip II, aided by 
gold of America and money extorted from exiled 
Moors and Jews, it was reared as a magnificent 
temple to the Virgin Mother, and as a final resting- 
place of Ferdinand and Isabella. There are five 
lofty naves over which the beautifully groined roof 
stretches, supported by massive piers, each composed 

of four Corinthian columns, united back to back. 
7 



146 GRANADA. 

A magnificent dome rises over the high altar, 
painted in white and gold, and in which are win- 
dows of colored glass, which throw down a soft 
light on the altar and coro below. Kneeling on 
each side of the high altar are the marble statues of 
Ferdinand and Isabella. Adorning the high altar 
are the works of Alonzo Cano, one of the brightest 
g'eniuses of Spain. His wood-carvings of sacred 
subjects are unsurpassed, especially those of the Cru- 
cifixion. He was also a great painter. On the 
walls over the high altar are some of his pictures, 
relating to the Virgin, the Annunciation, the Visit- 
ation. Granada was the home of Alonzo Cano. 
He was born here in 1601, died here in 1664, 
and lies buried under the coro in this cathedral. 
He obtained such celebrity in painting, sculpture 
and architecture, that he has been called the Michael 
Angelo of Spain. Almost every cathedral in Spain 
is adorned by some work of sculpture or painting 
from the hand of this great master. 

But the gem of this cathedral is the royal chapel 
which adjoins it. A fund was left in the will of Fer- 
dinand and Isabella for the support of this chapel, 
which is now invested in the lands of the Vega. On 
each side of the high altar are portraits of the king 
and queen, carved in wood, giving a good idea of 
their appearance and costumes; while back of their 
kneeling figures, carved also in wood, is a very curi- 



GRANADA. 1 4/ 

ous representation of the conquest of Granada and 
the delivery of the keys by Boabdil. But the great- 
est attraction in this chapel is the grand marble 
mausoleum before the high altar. It is composed 
of two sepulchres side by side, on one of which, in 
life size, sleep Ferdinand and Isabella, and on the 
other their daughter Crazy Jane and her husband, 
Philip the Handsome. You may descend beneath 
these to the tomb below and stand beside the rude 
iron-bound coffins which contain all that remains of 
so much royalty. Here also is the coffin of Prince 
Miguel, the eldest son of Crazy Jane, and who, at 
the age of twelve years, was killed by a fall from his 
horse near Granada. There is a fascination about 
this little tomb. These five iron-bound coffins tell 
strange and varied tales of human greatness and 
human sorrow. Charles V standing over his grand- 
parents, his parents, and his elder brother, said: 
" How small a place to contain so much greatness ! " 
But all the greatness lies in the character of the 
great queen who rests here. Her reign is the bright- 
est chapter in the history of Spain, and her name 
the brightest in the list of her rulers. She died far 
away at Medina del Campo, near Valladolid, but at 
her request they bore her here as her last resting- 
place. In the Museo at Madrid is a grand picture 
by Gogo of the drawing of the will of the queen on 
her death-bed. The king sits by her side, his long 



148 GRANADA. 

hair flowing on his shoulders ; the notary sits at a 
desk before her ; the clergy and her household are 
gathered around the foot of the bed. Bolstered up 
by pillows, Isabella lies, her pale face the picture of 
saintly resignation and queenly dignity, dictating 
her last, dying requests. To this little tomb, a few 
years since, came the ex-Queen Isabella. Here she 
said mass, here she opened the coffin of her re- 
nowned ancestor and gazed weeping on her face. 
Did she weep that the descendant of such an illus- 
trious monarch inherited so little of her purity, 
dignity and glory? If so, Avell might she weep. If 
shame could ever mantle a woman's cheek, it would 
be here. While looking on the face of the embalmed 
dead, Queen Isabel II might well ask herself. What 
was she, and what am I ? 

ANDALUSIA. 

Our route will now take us by rail to Cordova, 
which lies north-west of Granada about eighty miles, 
but by the railroad it is 140 miles. We go south- 
west about seventy miles in order to pass the Sierra 
Susanna, which hems in the Vega on the northerly 
side. Every foot of this famous valley has been 
fought over by Moor and Christian again and again. 
Here encamped the armies of Ferdinand and Isabella 
for years during the famous siege of Granada. 

At Boabdilla we struck the road from Cordova 



ANDALUSIA. 1 49 

to Malaga, and from thence we go north about 80 
miles to Cordova. 

Andalusia embraces the south-western part of 
the Peninsula. Of all Spain this is the land of ro- 
mance. In its climate, people and history, it differs 
from other parts of the country. Sheltered on the 
north from wintry winds by the lofty range of the 
Sierra Morena, and on the south by the mountains 
of Ronda from the burning blasts from Africa, its 
plains and valleys are the most charming and fruitful 
of all Spain. They abound in vines, olives, orange 
groves, and palms. Its shores are washed by the 
Atlantic, the Straits of Gibraltar and the Mediter- 
ranean. The Guadalquiver, the only navigable river 
in Spain, flows through a wide, rich valley. On its 
banks are Seville and Cordova, once cities of renown 
in learning and in the arts, delightful residences in win- 
ter, spring and autumn ; while Ronda and Granada, 
high up in their mountain fastnesses, furnish a de- 
lightful retreat from the heats of summer. Gibral- 
tar, Malaga and Cadiz are its seaports. Of all the 
Spaniards, the Andalusians are the most frank, open- 
hearted, gallant and joyous. They are fond of 
amusement, poetry and the dance, and are in man- 
ners the opposite of the haughty and reserved Cas- 
tilian. They are a gay, pleasure-loving, labor-hating 
race, thrusting all care from to-day upon to-morrow. 
They are the most picturesque in dress, most gallant 



1 50 CORDO VA. 

and daring. The men are tall and well-formed, and 
the women of great symmetry and queenly bearing 
in their walk. Little labor is required for subsistence 
here. The climate is enervating, and so all the habits 
of the people seem to be directed to taking life in 
the easiest possible manner — to getting the most 
pleasure with the least work. 

Our travels will take us by rail from Granada to 
Cordova, Seville, Cadiz, and from thence by sea 
through the Straits to Gibraltar and to Malaga. AH 
these cities are Moorish in their general character. 

CORDOVA. 

Cordova is situated on the Guadalquiver, above 
navigation. It was once a famous Roman city, con- 
tended for by the armies of Caesar and Pompey. 
Here were born the two Senecas and Lucan. Even 
then it was a city renowned for its high culture and 
intelligence. When the Moors, in 711, captured 
Spain, Cordova was made their capital. Under their 
rule it became a most renowned seat of learning, and 
the arts and sciences flourished here as nowhere else 
in Europe, in the ninth and tenth centuries. In 756 
the Moors of Spain declared themselves independ- 
ent of the kalif of Damascus, and proclaimed their 
own ruler kalif. It then contained about one million 
of inhabitants. Now it is an inland city, with forty- 



CORDOVA. 151 

three thousand inhabitants, and dependent upon the 
surrounding country for its business, as no large ves- 
sels can come up the Guadalquiver higher than Se- 
ville. It lies in a rich, extensive valley, filled with 
groves of palm and olives, bounded by a high range 
of mountains on the north. I know of no place in 
Spain where you are not in close proximity to a 
range of mountains. The city is surrounded by old 
Moorish walls, and the high hills back of the city are 
crowned with monasteries standing out among the 
olive groves. 

The Guadalquiver flows rapidly by the city, 
spanned by an old Roman bridge. The centre of 
attraction in Cordova now is the cathedral, which 
was once a Moorish mosque. It is almost the only 
structure left in Spain which has been saved from 
the reforming or destroying hand of Christians. This 
mosque was begun in 786. The builder followed 
the plan of the great mosque at Damascus. It was 
the third mosque as to sanctity in the world. It covers 
an area of 400 by 350 feet. Like most Eastern build- 
ings, it is low, the roof, only 35 feet high, is almost 
flat, and is supported by 1,096 columns of all colors 
and sizes, of jasper, porphyry, verd-antique, and many 
varieties of beautiful marbles. The Moors obtained 
them by plundering other and distant cities in the 
same manner as the columns of St. Sophia at Con- 
stantinople were gathered from all the famous Gre- 



152 CORDOVA. 

cian temples. These columns were brought from 
Nismes and Narbonne, in France ; from Seville and 
Tarragona in Spain ; from Carthage and other cities 
in Africa, and some from Constantinople. They all 
differ in size, length and color. As the Mohamme- 
dans had a passion for plundering other temples to 
adorn their own, uniformity was not considered. 

The maksurah of the mosque, or the seat of the 
kalif, is still preserved, and also the beautifully-orna- 
mented recess where the Koran was kept. The 
mosque is built within an immense inclosure, the 
walls of which are from thirty to sixty feet high and 
six feet thick. After passing this outer wall through 
a grand Moorish archway, you enter the Court of 
Oranges, filled with orange trees, having a large 
fountain and lake for ablution in the centre of it. 
Such a court is common to all mosques in the East. 
Across and beyond this court is the entrance to the 
cathedral. We must ascend the belfry tower, from 
which we have a grand view of the city, the distant 
mountains, and the river, stretching far away to 
the west through the green valley. 

From this point you look down into the gardens 
of the city and into the courts of the houses, paved 
and filled with flowers and orange trees. The cathe- 
dral below you looks like a village of low buildings 
covered with tile, and gives no indication of the 
beauty within. One object in the distance attracts 



CORDOVA. 153 

your attention. It is a massive bridge across the 
swift river. Its arches look a little irregular, for 
they have stood for twelve centuries on foundations 
laid in the swift current by the Romans. This cathe- 
dral is the finest and most complete specimen of 
Mohammedan architecture in Europe. But there is 
one thing to mar the unity of the grand structure. 
In 1623 the Bishop, Alonzo Manrique, not satisfied 
with the low roof of this immense mosque, attempted 
to add to it by building up from the centre a coro, 
grand in itself, and beautifully ornamented and rising 
into a lofty dome. Charles V well described this 
change when he said to the Bishop: "You have 
built here what you or any one might have built 
anywhere else ; but you have destroyed what was 
unique in the world." 

Seventy years were employed in building this 
coro. It has 109 stalls for the choir and clergy, and 
over every stall are most beautiful carvings in 
wood, illustrating Scripture scenes of the Old and 
New Testaments, beginning with Adam and Eve. 
The wood is mahogany, and some of the scenes 
have fifteen figures in relief, most exquisitely done. 
All the sides of this lofty coro are most elaborately 
wrought for fifty feet with life-size figures of the 
Saviour and the Virgin Mary exalted above all. 

The immense number of columns ranged over 
this great space of 400 feet by 350 gives the singular 



154 SEVILLE. 

appearance of aisles running in every direction 
They form nineteen longitudinal and twenty-nine 
transverse aisles, and look in the dim light like a 
forest of precious marbles, jasper and porphyry. 

SEVILLE. 

Of all the cities of Spain, Seville is the most at- 
tractive if we disregard historical associations. Built 
by the Moors, adapted to a warm climate and a life 
of ease, it retains all the characteristics of that 
luxurious people without signs of decay. Situated 
on the Guadalquiver, at the head of navigation, it 
has sufficient commerce to give to the inhabitants 
an air of activity and prosperity, and the advantages 
of business and wealth. There is an enterprise and 
life here which is seen nowhere else except in Barce- 
lona and Malaga. Most of the streets are narrow 
and irregular, but well paved and cleanly, and the 
houses high. But modern ideas seem here to be 
gaining ground, for they are widening many of the 
streets and opening squares. Many fine carriages 
are seen, and good cabs can be hired. Along the 
river for two miles a magnificent stone quay is built 
twenty feet above low-water mark. And here may 
be seen steamers and ships from all parts of the 
world. In the winter freshets the river rises thirty 
or forty feet and overflows the whole country, and 



SEVILLE. 155 

the city also. At the time of our visit it had rained 
twenty-four days successively, and we found boats 
ready for use in the public squares, and the doors 
of the houses opening on the street walled up for 
two feet to keep out the water which was expected 
to flood them. The city is circular, and a wall, 
about five miles in extent, surmounted by sixty-six 
towers, surrounds it, and separates it from the sub- 
urbs, which are laid out in beautiful gardens. Most 
of the houses were built by the Moors centuries ago. 
They are ornamented with pretty little bowers and 
windows, or little balconies, built out like bay win- 
dows, where a glimpse of the street may be had, 
and the cool evening air enjoyed. 

They are invariably built around a patio or court, in 
the centre of which is a marble fountain surrounded 
by trees, plants, flowers and statuary. These courts 
are generally paved with marble and wainscoted 
for two or three feet high with the beautiful colored 
tile of different patterns. The front door of every 
house opens into a small vestibule, and between this 
vestibule and the court is an open-work iron door, 
so that you can look in to the court of every house 
from the street as you pass. The front door of 
every house is always open, and thus you have a 
succession of pretty pictures as you walk the street. 
The size of the court and the beauty of its decora- 
tion indicate the character of the house and the 



156 SEVILLE. 

wealth of its occupant. The windows of the house, 
which open on the street, are protected by an iron 
raiHng, where the young ladies may safely sit during 
the evening and listen to the vows and protestations 
of their cloaked lovers in the street below. 

The court is the parlor of the house. Here, in 
warm weather the family sit amid trees and flowers, 
and as their rooms all open on it, they take their 
siesta in the middle of the day, lulled to sleep by 
the music of the flowing fountains. This court is 
open to the sky. In summer they draw a covering 
over the top to keep out the sun and the hot air ; 
otherwise the heat would be unendurable. Every 
story of the house has a gallery running around this 
court, and all the rooms open on this gallery and 
court. The lower stories of the house are occupied 
by the family in summer because they are cooler, 
the upper stories in the winter in order to escape 
the dampness. This court, which you see as you 
pass the door, this glimpse of flowing fountains, 
green trees, flowers, marbles and variegated tiling 
of all colors, gives a charm to every house and an 
air of poetry and romance to the whole city. Could 
it be always spring or autumn, Seville would be the 
most delightful of cities to live in. There is a happy 
joyousness about the people in contrast with the 
solemnity of the Toledoans. 

Seville has always been the home of artists and 



SEVILLE. 157 

scholars. One of the largest universities and one of 
the finest libraries of Spain are located here. Here 
were born Velazquez and Murillo. The latter spent 
his life here, and some of his greatest works are still 
preserved here in the cathedral, the Museo and the 
Caridad. The most celebrated bull-fights are held 
here, and the finest animals for this national sport 
are raised near here. The bull-ring of Seville will 
accommodate 12,000 people, and the most skilful 
fighters are found here. The religious shows of 
Seville are unsurpassed, even by Rome. The pro- 
cessions in Holy Week and on saints' days are some- 
thing unique. There is more of the imposing pa- 
geant of the Catholic Church, more superstitious rev- 
erence for the host and the images borne through 
the streets with great pomp and display, than in any 
other city of Europe. There are many semi-religi- 
ous clubs of young men who join in these displays 
on holy days. The clergy of the city are numerous, 
of whom 132 are connected with the cathedral. 
Their vestments, wrought in gold, are marvels of 
richness and beauty. 

The grandest pageants of the year are in Holy 
Week, when the whole city is given up to a holy 
revelry and religious jollity. During this week the 
host is borne through the streets attended by hun- 
dreds of the clergy in their splendid robes, blazing 
in gold and jewels. The host is placed in the cele- 



158 SEVILLE. 

brated Custodia, which is a silver tower formed after 
the model of the Giralda, the famous tower of the 
cathedral. It is of solid silver, about fourteen feet 
high, and weighs hundreds of pounds. This Cus- 
todia is borne through the city on the shoulders of 
men. It is then returned to the cathedral, where it 
is elevated on what is called the Monumento, which 
is an immense wooden structure or temple, in the 
form of a cross, which is, during Holy Week, erected 
on the pavement of the cathedral, over the grave of 
Ferdinand Columbus, the son of the discoverer. It 
reaches nearly to the arch of the nave. When thus 
erected and lighted up, with the lofty silver Custodia 
blazing at the top, and shedding its light on the 
thousands who crowd the aisles of this immense 
cathedral, the scene surpasses the wonders of fairy 
land. 

SEVILLE CATHEDRAL. 

Spain is noted for her magnificent cathedrals, but 
of them all, that of Seville is the grandest. A great 
cathedral is the highest conception of modern art, 
and the Catholic Church has the honor of erecting 
them in almost every country. The reflection has 
been made against Protestantism that it builds no 
great temples in honor of God. This is true ; and it 
is also true that no more of these grand edifices will 
ever be built by Protestants or Catholics. The con- 



SE VILLE. 159 

ditlons necessary to produce them are gone from the 
world, never to return. 

1st. Royal authority and royal revenues are not 
under the control of the clergy, as in past centuries. 

2d. The clergy have not such princely incomes as 
they once had. 

3d. The superstitious element, by which kings, 
priests and aristocracy sought to appease Divinity 
by the works of their hands, is wanting. 

4th. Money, which in rude ages went for outward 
show into stone, marble, brass and painting, now 
is devoted to more practical good, such as hospi- 
tals, asylums, infirmaries, reformatories, universities, 
schools, churches, and the like. 

The practical age has superseded the age of dis- 
play, the age of reason that of superstitious devo- 
tion ; consequently cathedrals — the outgrowth of 
this spirit — will never again be built. For this very 
reason they are all the more interesting to the prac- 
tical men of the nineteenth century. These grand 
piles — the highest expressions of genius — are them- 
selves storehouses of art. You must go again and 
again to them to get steeped with the impressions of 
their true grandeur, in the same manner as we need 
to see Niagara often, before we fully feel its sublimity. 
The mind cannot take it all in at once, so varied, 
vast and numerous are the objects which go to 
make up the grand whole. 



l6o SEVILLE. 

Stand in the lofty doorway of one of these grand 
cathedrals ; look through the great nave stretching 
before you 400 or 500 feet, between massive columns 
rising 200 or 300 feet above, till they are lost in the 
graceful arches above your head,' as the trunk of a 
noble tree grows into the overhanging branches ; 
see the soft rays of sunset shining through the 
gorgeous painted windows, and casting their brilliant 
colors on the marble pavement below ; see the black- 
robed priests flitting like shadows before you in the 
dim light ; hear the peal of the great organ, resound- 
ing through the lofty aisle ; take in, if you can, all 
the rich fund of art — statuary, painting, carving — 
everywhere scattered in profusion through these 
vast spaces; fill your mind with the great associ- 
ations which cluster here, the grand pageants which 
have come and gone, the mighty dead who sleep 
beneath its marble floors, and you have some faint 
idea of the impression of a great cathedral. 

The cathedral of Seville is the richest and largest 
in Spain. It is built on the site of an ancient 
mosque, and on one side of a quadrilateral, which is 
700 or 800 feet square, with a covered walk running 
entirely around it. Part of this square is occupied 
by a court filled with orange trees, with a fountain 
in the centre. Entering the quadrilateral and cross- 
ing this court, you enter the cathedral by lofty 
doors. The loftiness of the arches, the wide spaces 



SEVILLE, l6l 

and fine pavements remind you of St. Peter's. Sol- 
emn grandeur is the characteristic of this great tem- 
ple. It is 431 feet long and 315 wide. It has seven 
aisles. The centre nave towers up 145 feet. The 
pavement is of black and white marble, and it alone 
cost, two centuries since, the sum of $155,000. 
The whole edifice is one mass of beautiful art work. 
It is lighted by ninety-three windows ; many of them 
are elegantly painted and are 375 years old. The 
coro in the centre, open to the high altar, is one im- 
mense elaborate piece of wood-carving. The archi- 
episcopal throne is high above all other seats, and 
faces the high altar, with the seat of the Bishop 
on one side and of the Dean of the Chapter on the 
other. 

Before the coro, under the pavement in the cen- 
tre of the cathedral, is the grave of Ferdinand 
Columbus, the son of the great Admiral. A marble 
slab over his grave tells the deeds of his illustrious 
father and his own, and on each side are depicted 
the three little ships in which Columbus crossed the 
Atlantic. Ferdinand Columbus was himself a great 
traveler and writer, and gave a large library to the 
chapter of the cathedral, which can be seen. It con- 
tains many of the curious writings of his father. On 
the other side of the coro stands the beautiful 
bronze candlestick, 25 feet high, holding 13 candles. 
In Holy week, when the " Miserere " is sung, twelve 



1 62 SEVILLE. 

of them are put out, representing the twelve Apos- 
tles who forsook him, and one left burning repre- 
sents the Virgin. In Holy Week is lighted also 
the huge font candle, which is like a pillar of marble, 
24 feet high, and weighs 800 pounds. 

Twenty-eight or thirty lateral chapels surround 
the cathedral, each having its own altar, over which 
the Virgin presides. Many of them have beautiful 
pictures from some of the best of the Spanish artists. 
In the Royal chapel lies St. Ferdinand, the great war- 
rior, who took Seville from the Moors in 1248, and 
who died in 1252. Over the high altar, in a most 
magnificent urn of gold and silver, lies his embalmed 
body. This great king is almost worshiped by the 
Sevillians. The urn is opened and the well-preserved 
body is displayed three times a year, when there is 
a grand military mass, such as we described as being 
observed at Granada the second day of January. 

I saw more people in the cathedral at Seville, and 
more apparent devotion, than at any other place in 
Spain. One respectable man I saw walking on his 
knees across the cathedral to prostrate himself before 
the Virgin. He seemed well satisfied that he had 
done a good thing. One of the side chapels is de- 
voted to the vestments of the cardinals, bishops and 
other clergy. There are two long rooms filled with 
them. They are worked in gold and silver thread 
and ornamented with gobelin. Some of them are 



SEVILLE. 163 

4CX) years old, and their splendor is something won- 
derful. 

The cathedral is the great place of resort in Sev- 
ille. Thousands might gather here and scarcely be 
noticed. Here, in the dark shadows of the lofty 
columns and in the long stretch of the dim aisles, is 
the trysting-place of lovers ; here centre all the 
grand pageants of the different brotherhoods which 
parade the streets in Holy Week ; and here beggars 
innumxerable, on other days, as in all other cathe- 
drals in Spain, hold sway. 

THE GIRALDA. 

Towers furnish some of the most effective archi- 
tecture in the world. They are the glory of Cairo, as 
we look down upon it from the citadel on the Mok- 
atam Hills. The Campanile of Giotto is the beauty 
of beautiful Florence. The Moorish tower called 
the Giralda is the beauty of beautiful Seville. It 
was built by the Moors in 1196, as a Muezzin tower, 
from which the faithful were called to prayer morn- 
ing, noon and evening. It was attached to their 
mosque, which was destroyed by the Christian con- 
querors to make a place for the cathedrals, which it 
now adjoins. The Giralda was a sacred tower in 
the eyes of the Moors, and when Seville was taken 
they attempted to destroy it. But it was too beau- 



164 SEVILLE 

tiful an object to be lost to the world, so the Chris- 
tian Monarch St. Ferdinand spared it, and it be- 
came a cathedral tower. It was originally 250 feet 
high, but a belfry of 100 feet more of open filigree 
work has been added, from which peals forth a 
chime of bells every hour of the day. Girdling this 
belfry is the appropriate motto in large letters of 
iron : " The name of the Lord is a strong tower." 
The Giralda is square at the base, and its lofty sides, 
as they stretch upward, present a succession of 
doorways and windows, spanned by the horseshoe 
arch ; of balconies and turrets, all interspersed with 
the rich ornamentation in mathematical figures 
peculiar to the Arabs. 

The ascent is by a succession of inclined planes 
within, winding around the four sides, making a 
wide, easy road, paved with brick to the belfry, so 
that a person could ascend on horseback. The ex- 
Queen Isabella, once ascended on the back of a 
donkey. The beautiful lattice-work belfry is sur- 
mounted by a figure of Faith, fourteen feet high, 
which serves as a vane, and she changes her posi- 
tion with the wind as easily as some people can 
change their faith. The Giralda, having stood for 
seven centuries, is still one of the most noble and 
perfect specimens of Moorish architecture in the 
world. We must ascend by its broad, easy road, 
250 feet to its great bells, which have all been duly 



SEVILLE. 165 

baptized and christened after distinguished saints. 
From here we look out upon one of the most beau- 
tiful panoramas any city in the world can present. 
Immediately below us lies the court of the great 
cathedral filled with orange trees, which was once 
the court of the great mosque. The domes, towers 
and roofs of the adjoining cathedral buildings, of 
themselves look like a small city encompassed by a 
lofty wall. 

Outside of the cathedral grounds we look down 
into the open court of almost every house in the 
city, filled with trees, flowers and statuary, and 
adorned with colored tiling, each in itself a lovely 
picture. Around the densely crowded city stretches 
a wall overhung with trees, lined with gardens and 
surrounded by towers. 

But beyond the city the eye takes in on every 
side a wide and beautiful landscape, bounded by 
lofty mountains on the horizon. Far away to the 
north-east stretches the Guadalquivir, whose valley 
is the garden of Andalusia. We saw it at its flood 
when it filled the wide valley for twenty miles in 
extent and ten miles in width, and had the appear- 
ance of a vast lake. To the east, far on the horizon, 
rose the snowy peaks of the mountains of Granada, 
where for two centuries the Moors had watched and 
threatened the kings of Spain in their capital at 
Seville. To the west of the city flows the swift 



1 66 SEVILLE. 

current of tlie river, where at the quay are anchored 
the ships of all nations, and where once rode the 
navies of Caesar. Across the river, to the northwest, 
about five miles away, is a little town seen through 
the olive groves, called Santi Ponce, where were 
born three Roman Emperors — Trajan, Adrian and 
Theodosius. It was built by Scipio Africanus. To 
the north, ten miles away, on the hills, lies Casteleja 
de la Cuesta, a small town where lived Hernando 
Cortes, the conqueror of Mexico, and where he died 
in 1547, neglected by his sovereigns. He died 
broken-hearted, as did Columbus. His body was 
removed from place to place, until at last it found 
a resting-place in Mexico, the scene of his conquests 
and his cruelties. 

The objects of interest in Seville are numerous. 
There is here the Alcazar (the house of Csesar), the 
royal palace, built on the site of the dwelling of the 
Roman Praetor by the great Moorish prince, Abdur- 
rahm, in the tenth century. It has been changed 
and added to by every successive Christian monarch, 
until it is a mixture of Moorish and modern archi- 
tecture of immense proportions. It abounds in 
patios, large and small, filled wuth lakes, fountains 
and gardens. Next to the Alhambra, it is the most 
interesting Moorish building in Spain. It is in per- 
fect order, and was recently occupied by the ex- 
Queen Isabella and her family. The ex-Queen came 



SEVILLE. 167 

from France with the promise that she should reside 
at Madrid. Her children, the king and his sister, 
could not endure her presence in the capital, and 
the Government was afraid she might again become 
the head of a party. 

We should not leave Seville until we have paid 
a visit to the tobacco factory, which is outside the 
walls. The manufacture of cigars, cigarettes and 
snuff is a government monopoly, and they have 
large manufactories in different cities of Spain. 
This one at Seville is an immense structure, many 
stories high, with twenty-eight interior courts. It 
is about 700 feet long by 525 wide. It is surrounded 
by a moat and high walls, and guarded by soldiers. 
They employ here 5,000 women in the manufacture 
of cigars. These women are a class by themselves, 
like the Grisettes of Paris, and with much the same 
character. They earn from thirty to forty cents per 
day. They come all together like an army at a 
certain hour, and leave together also. They bring 
their food, their babies and their dogs. The babies 
are here fed, dressed and cared for, and are lying 
around promiscuously in all directions in this im- 
mense establishment. Each story looks like a tene- 
ment house for a thousand families. The women 
are not very attractive, but have a bold, staring, 
gypsy-like look, and an impertinent word for every 
stranger. 



1 68 MURILLO. 



MURILLO. 



We cannot leave Seville without doing homage 
to the memory of Murillo. Here he was born 
January i, 1618; here he lived, here he gained im- 
mortality, and here he died, April 3, 1682. His 
genius pervades the whole city like an atmosphere. 
Here he founded an academy and school of paint- 
ing. His works adorn the cathedral, the palace, the 
Museo, and almost every church. It is wonderful 
to see how the genius of one man, age after age, 
can inspire the minds of a whole people. His cre- 
ations of beauty seem to live like sunlight in the 
minds of the people. What Raphael was and is to 
Italy, Murillo was and is to Spain. Both have been 
and will be worshiped as inspired geniuses — the one 
for breathing heavenly grace into earthly forms, and 
the other for transforming earthly nature into a 
divine loveliness. 

The portraits of Murillo show him to have been 
a large, proud-looking man, with the bearing of a 
cavaHer. He must have had some of the haughty 
imperiousness of the Spaniard. There is nothing 
of softness and tenderness in his face such as you 
will see in that of Raphael. He began life in pov- 
erty, and first painted pictures to be exported to 
South America for the churches. He married a 
lady of wealth, and thereafter he lived in affluence 



MURILLO, 169 

and entertained with elegance. He painted chiefly 
for the Capuchins, and his subjects are mostly sacred 
ones. His house, where he lived and died, still re- 
mains in Seville. In the south-eastern part of the 
city, close by the wall, not far from the cathedral 
and the Alcazar, he lived. It is difificult to find the 
house, hidden away in the Jewish quarter like the 
nest of a bird, as if to escape observation. But 
once there you feel the inspiration of the place. It 
has the usual Moorish court, which is filled with 
trees and flowers, with a fountain in the centre. 
The corridors are hung with pictures. Between the 
house and the city walls a large garden intervenes. 
On the second story is his studio, looking down into 
this court on one side, and on the other over the 
gardens and over the walls far away to the distant 
olive-clad hills. Here, in this little room, not more 
than fifteen feet square, surrounded by nature's 
beauties, worked and lived this great genius of 
Spain, among the creations of his own fancy. 

Standing in this little room you ask yourself : Is 
it possible that here such creations as the " Immac- 
ulate Conception," "The Guardian Angel," "St. 
Francis and the Saviour " and " Moses Striking the 
Rock " could have been conceived ; that here such 
glimpses of the divine and heavenly could have been 
caught and imprisoned by the canvas for the delight 
of coming ages. Indeed it is hard to beHeve that 



1 70 MURILLO. 

mere unaided human genius could have produced 
such ecstatic beauties as the pictures of Raphael 
and Murillo. Inspiration must have vouchsafed to 
them glimpses of the spiritual world. 

The power to imagine and feel all the wonderful 
combination of forms, beauty, grace, color and feat- 
ure which make up one of these pictures, and see 
them as a whole, and then to paint them as with 
the hand of an angel on the canvas, is to me super- 
human. One of the most, perhaps the most, won- 
derful picture of Murillo, is the Guardian Angel, 
which hangs in the Sacristy of the cathedral. It is 
in his later Vaporoso style, with a soft, golden glow. 
The angel, with a sort of heavenly admiration and 
wonder, is looking down on the face of the Saviour- 
child, whom he is holding by his right hand, while 
with his left he is pointing to heaven, as if he were 
whispering some wondrous vision of that far-off 
land. The angel is human, but not the less an 
angel for that. The child is divine, but not the less 
a child for that. At the Caridad, or alms-house, is 
another of Murillo's great pictures called " Moses 
Striking the Rock." The majesty with which the 
great leader of Israel stands before the complaining 
host is grand. 

There is a gallery of paintings at Seville called 
the Museo. It has but few pictures, and Murillo is 
the presiding genius of the place. About twenty of 



. MURILLO. 171 

his pictures hang here, besides many by Zurbaran 
and Alonzo Cano. The majority of Murillo's pict- 
ures are Conceptions, and he is called by the Span- 
iards the Conception painter. The faces of his saints 
and virgins are the same in nearly all his pictures, 
yet so great is . the variety of color, drapery and 
grouping, that every picture has a charm of its own. 
Murillo has not the strength of Michael Angelo, 
or the naturalness of Velazquez. He has not that 
ideality of Raphael which can bring the heavenly to 
earth ; but he has that power which can exalt the 
earthly to heaven, which can rid humanity of all 
that is sensual and earthly, and clothe it with all the 
grace of spiritual beauty. Looking at the face of 
Murillo, you would not think him a man of tender 
sentiment. Yet his life, work, and all his subjects 
show it. One circumstance will show the sentiment 
of the man. There now hangs in the Sacristy in the 
cathedral a celebrated picture, a Descent from the 
Cross, by Campana, a pupil of Michael Angelo. So 
life-like is it that one great artist, Pachecho, said 
that he was afraid to remain with it after dark. 
This picture once hung in the parish church of 
Murillo, called Santa Cruz. It was with him a great 
favorite. He used to stand before it watching, as 
he said, until those holy men had finished the taking 
down of the sacred body of Jesus. Before this pict- 
ure he wished to be buried, and his wish was grati- 



1/2 MURILLO. 

fied. A plain marble slab in the church of Santa 
Cruz marked the spot where he was laid under this 
picture, with this inscription : " Vive Moriturus^ 
Marshal Soult, the vandal who robbed Spain of its 
treasures, destroyed this church, scattered the bones 
of Murillo, and tore this grand picture into five 
pieces. It has now been restored and hangs in the 
cathedral. This picture is not equal to Rubens' De- 
scent from the Cross. Two men in Jewish dress, on 
ladders, are letting down the lifeless form with its 
drooping head, the body pale and bathed in blood, 
while the Virgin mother, Mary Magdalen, and the 
other women, are gathered around the foot of the 
cross, with their sorrowful faces turned up to the 
lifeless body. 

It is here at Seville that Murillo can be seen, or 
rather felt, in all his glory. He was a true Andalu- 
sian, fond of beauty and ravishing color, proud and 
high-tempered. Of all the bright stars in the galaxy 
of Spanish artists, he is the brightest. 

THE OLIVE AND THE VINE. 

We can reach Cadiz from Seville by railway, and 
by the boat down the Guadalquivir. The distance 
is about one hundred miles. The valley of the 
Guadalquivir is one of the most fertile parts of 
Spain. Its olives, olive oil, wine, oranges and cork 



JEREZ, 173 

are noted, and form staple articles of commerce. An 
olive farm, or Hacienda, as it is called, is worthy of 
a visit, and we pass by many of them on our way to 
Cadiz. It is at once a country home of the owner, 
a village for his laborers, and a manufactory where 
men, women and children work alike. A good Ha- 
cienda will contain 20,000 trees planted in rows. 
The trees have a beautiful green color, but no other 
beauty. They resemble our large water willows. 
Each tree produces from two to three bushels of 
olives, the value of which is about one dollar. The 
olive is planted in January. A branch is cut from 
the parent stock, four slits made in the largest end, 
and a stone put between them and inserted in 
the ground and a bank made around it. It is 
watered for two years, but yields little return till 
the tenth year, and is in its prime at its 30th year. 
The finest trees are produced by grafting upon the 
wild ohve. The berries, when ripe, are of a dark 
purple color. In the autumn, when the gathering 
commences, the orchards are a lively scene. The 
men, clothed in sheep-skins, mount the trees and 
whip off the fruit with sticks ; the children pick them 
up, and the women drive the donkeys laden with 
them to the mill. The fruit is ground into a pulp 
between two mill-stones turned by mules. The 
mass is then put into round mats or baskets, about the 
size and shape of a large cheese, and these are piled 



1/4 JEREZ. 

one upon another under a large press, and the oil 
extracted, which runs into a large vat below, partly- 
filled with water. The impurities sink into the 
water, and the oil rises to the top and is dipped off 
into earthen jars, which are sunk in the earth, and 
which hold about i,ooo gallons each, and here it 
is allowed to clarify and settle. The refuse from 
the press is used for fuel and to fatten pigs. The 
olive berry, when used for eating, is picked just be- 
fore it is ripe, to preserve its green color. The oil 
of Spain is not so pure and delicate as that of Lucca. 
The first quality is used as food, but the second 
grade is thick and green, and is exported for mak- 
ing soap. 

The railway passes through Jerez, from whence 
comes our Sherry wine. The wine-cellars here are 
immense establishments, having the appearance of 
large sheds, each covering acres of ground. They are 
called Bodegas. Many of them contain 15,000 butts, 
each holding over one hundred gallons. The stranger 
is conducted through these immense establishments, 
and invited to taste all the different kinds of wine, 
from the crude juice of the grape to the ripe golden 
sherry. They have great names for the different 
butts, such as the " Twelve Apostles," " Mathu. 
selah," which is ninety-five years old ; " The wine 
of Jesus Christ," etc. The wines obtained from 
such well-known houses as R. Davis, Duff Gordon, 



JEREZ. 175 

M. Pemartin, M. Misa, and P. Garvey, are pure. 
No good sherry can be bought in Jerez for less 
than from two and a half to three dollars per gal- 
lon, and from that upward for the older wines. 
Add to this a duty of fifty or sixty per cent., and 
we may see what is the first cost of a pure sherry 
wine in this country. Wine of a certain grade — 
say Amontillado — is cured in a certain butt of im- 
mense size. In the bottom of the butt will be 
found a substance called " mother," similar to that 
found in barrels of vinegar. Wine is drawn from 
this butt from time to time, and it is filled as often 
from more crude wine, and thus the same grade 
is kept up year after year from the mother or co- 
agulated mass in the bottom. 

The Spaniards do not drink the sherry wines, be- 
cause they are too dear and too strong for their 
taste. It is far more common in England and 
America, upon the tables of the rich, than in Spain. 
Even in Seville and Granada, it is rather used as a 
delicate liqueur than as a common beverage. The 
only time we saw any sherry in Spain was at the 
house of the foreign Ministers, and at the reception 
of Mr. Canovas, the President of the Cabinet. It is 
made by foreigners and for foreigners. The sherry, 
although a pure wine, is the result of a mixture of 
many different kinds of wines of a great variety of 
flavor ; and the process of tasting, mixing, correcting, 



1/6 JEREZ, 

adding and subtracting from the different butts, un- 
til the required color, body, flavor, aroma and dry- 
ness is obtained, is the work of years. The taster, 
who is called the Capataz, thus becomes the most 
important man of the Bodega, and the autocrat of 
the business. He is ordinarily a mountaineer from 
the Asturian mountains, who spends his life in sip- 
ping wines. Fine old sherry is of a rich brown 
color, and the newer wines are paler. The quantity 
of alcohol in the natural sherry is about twenty per 
cent. And even in addition to this, to prepare it 
for shipping, brandy must be added. There are 
sweet wines of the sherry grape with all the flavor of 
sherry wine. It has the delicacy and the delicious- 
ness of Johannisberger. 

It will be seen that no really pure and good sherry 
can be had in this country for less than five dollars a 
gallon. Price may be one test of the purity of a 
wine ; but, considering the vast amount of wine 
which is manufactured and doctored in this country 
and France, the only guaranty for a good wine is 
the house from which it is purchased. But the 
truth requires us to say that much, and perhaps 
most, of the so-called wine sold in America is a 
manufactured compound destructive to health. The 
ordinary drink of the better classes in Spain is the 
common red wine, generally the Valdepenas. It Is 
furnished gratis by all the hotels at the table d'hote^ 



JEREZ. I 'J'/ 

and can be bought at from twenty-five to thirty-five 
cents per gallon. We saw scarcely an intoxicated 
person in Spain. Yet here the common people who 
can afford it are fond of stronger drink than their 
wine. There is a preparation of anise seed, and also 
Holland Schnapps, sold in the saloons in small 
glasses, half as large as a small wine-glass, for a cent 
a glass. 

The great wine merchants of Jerez are generally 
either French or Scotch. They are wealthy, and 
live in the suburbs of the city like princes. The 
olive and the vine are the sources of wealth in Spain. 
The annual production of wine is about one hundred 
and thirty-six millions of gallons. 



CADIZ. 

Two and a half miles from Jerez, on the banks of 
the Guadelete, is the most famous battle-field of 
Spain. Here, in 711, was fought for two days the 
great battle between the Moors under Taric and the 
Goths under Roderick, which resulted in the entire 
subversion of the Gothic power and the subjugation 
of Spain to the Moors. Little by little, and as the 
result of dissensions among themselves, the Moors 
lost their conquests, until at length, in 1492, at 
Granada, Boabdil surrendered the last of their pos- 
sessions in Spain. The railway which brings us 
from Seville, passing near this battle-field, brings us 
to Cadiz, which is situated on the extremity of a 
long, narrow, semi-circular promontory, extending 
into the Atlantic ocean very much as Cape Cod 
does. On the marshes, as we approach, within a few 
miles of the city, we see numerous heaps of salt, 
looking like soldiers' tents, white and glistening in 
the sun. It is made by evaporation in shallow pans 
from sea water by the heat of the sun. When gath- 
ered into a heap shaped like a tent, a fire of brush is 
built over it until an exterior coating, smooth, glis- 
tening, and impervious to rain, is made by the melt- 



CADIZ. 179 

ing of the salt. Here it will stand for years until 
sold for export. 

The promontory on which the city of Cadiz is built 
is about eight miles long. The peninsula, at the ex- 
tremity of which the city is built, is a series of rocky 
ledges from ten to fifty feet high, extending about 
eight miles from the mainland in a north-westerly 
direction. On the western side it takes the whole 
unobstructed force of the Atlantic, and affords on 
the eastern side a shelter to a splendid inner bay, as 
large as the bay of New York. So high are the tides 
and so great the force of the Atlantic, that a massive 
wall, fifty feet high, is built to protect the city for four 
miles on the seaward side. On the extreme end of 
this promontory, which is about three-fourths of a mile 
wide, Cadiz is built. It has been a famous city from 
the earliest antiquity. It was founded by Hercules, 
so the annals say, three hundred years before the 
days of Romulus and Remus, and was the great and 
the only port of the Phoenicians and the Romans on 
the Atlantic. It therefore monopolized all the com- 
merce with England and the Baltic, and became im- 
mensely rich. It has always been, and is now, a 
city of merchants, and therefore its people have not 
been held in the highest estimation by the Spanish 
grandees, who, glorying in their descent from re- 
nowned cavaliers, even in their poverty affect to 
despise trade. Although one of the oldest, Cadiz 



l80 CADIZ. 

has the air of one of the newest cities of Spain. 
Ascend the Torre de la Vigia, on which is situated 
the marine observatory, and you have the whole city 
at your feet. Every house is whitewashed within 
and without. Every roof is flat, covered v/ith 
brick, and cemented so as to catch the rain, en 
which alone the city depends for water. All is white, 
and cleanly, and smokeless as if just painted. Nu- 
merous elegant little towers rise on the roofs, from 
which the merchants could watch their galleons 
coming into the harbor. The narrow peninsula 
below you is thickly studded with houses, but looks 
as if the stormy Atlantic, forever battering against 
its walls, would sweep it out of existence. To the 
west stretches the trackless ocean, with no land 
between us and the shores of Virginia. To the east 
lies the great inner bay, ten miles in width, on the 
eastern side of which is Puerto Real, the great naval 
station of Spain, and which once was the rendez- 
vous of the galleys of Caesar. There is no business 
in Cadiz except such as is thrust upon it by its har- 
bor. It has lost much of its prestige as a commer- 
cial city, and Seville has taken it. Oil, wine, olives, 
oranges and salt are shipped here in large quan- 
tities, but foreigners monopolize much of this busi- 
ness. Before the late wars, Cadiz was a rich city. 
Their wealth was mostly invested in their own gov- 
ernment funds, on which no interest is paid ; taxes 



CADIZ. l8l 

are high, and the expense of Hving very great ; 
almost nothing is raised in this part of Andalusia. 
Bad tillage and want of rain leaves the country bar- 
ren of almost everything but wheat. Very few 
vegetables are obtained. The poor live on fish, 
bread and olives. Meat, chickens and eggs are 
brought from Tangiers in Morocco. Both poor and 
rich are obliged to live with the greatest economy. 
But a Spaniard can live comfortably on almost 
nothing. The curse of the people is their ignor- 
ance. A consular agent informed me that the best 
people could scarcely write their names, and that 
many men high in office could not write intelligibly. 
Another curse, says my guide, is the priests. There 
are sixty connected with one of the cathedrals here, 
where three would be enough. The city, being sur- 
rounded by water, is resorted to for its cool breezes 
in the summer, and has therefore become a water- 
ing-place. 

In the evening, after the terrible heat of the day, 
the inhabitants come out of their houses and fill the 
alamedas or squares which face the sea, where they 
enjoy the cool sea breeze, and spend half the night 
promenading under the trees and along the shore. 
Cadiz is noted for its beautiful women, and, says a 
good authority, " they fascinate alike by their form 
and their manners. They are more the devotees of 
Venus than of the chaste Diana." 



1 82 CADIZ. 

There are few works of art here worth the travel- 
er's attention. Cadiz has two cathedrals. Even 
the best is a bad specimen of the overloaded, florid 
Corinthian style of the last century. But one work 
of art here we cannot pass by. It is the last pict- 
ure of Murillo, the " Marriage of St. Catherine," 
over the high altar in the chapel of the Convent of 
the Capuchins. When the picture was nearly com- 
pleted he fell from the scaffold and received injuries 
from which he died shortly after at Seville. This 
picture is nine feet by twelve, and has ten figures in 
it. St. Catherine is kneeling before the Virgin, who 
holds her son on her knees. He is putting the ring 
on the finger of the saint, angels standing on each 
side, and cherubs are hovering above and below. 
The coloring and the grouping are fine. The priest 
in attendance told me Murillo was occupied twenty 
days in painting the picture, which is substantially 
finished. Here in this convent is also a St. Francis. 
The saint is kneeling, looking up, enraptured by the 
heavenly vision of the Saviour dimly seen in the 
clouds above. His hands are stretched upward, 
bearing the bloody marks of the nails. They stand 
out from the canvas like the arms of a living man. 
The upturned face of holy submission, reverent 
love, seems an inspiration. Had Murillo never 
done anything else, this picture would have made 
him immortal. I asked the ancient friar who 



CADIZ, 183 

attended us, ^' What did your brethren pay Murillo 
for this picture?" He said seventy-five dollars. 



CADIZ TO GIBRALTAR. 

It is possible to go from Cadiz to Gibraltar by 
diligence in fifteen hours, but it is easier to go by 
water if the weather is fair. With a splendid water- 
front, with the finest harbor in Spain, and one of 
the finest in the world, Cadiz has only one little 
wooden dock for small boats, and no dock from 
which a little steamer can start. It has every com- 
mercial advantage — a good harbor, good approach 
to it, a good country at the back of it, a good rail- 
road to it, and good access to France, England and 
the United States. It should be a great city, full of 
enterprise and wealth. But it is dead. No large com- 
mercial houses, no manufactories, no business but 
such as necessarily comes to a port. Our little boat 
steams out of this magnificent harbor to the north- 
west, to get around the ledge of rocks about six miles 
from the city, called the " Sows." This ledge saved 
the city from destruction when Lisbon was destroyed 
by an earthquake in 1755. The great tidal wave 
struck this ledge of rocks and was broken; other- 
wise it would have rolled over the city and de- 
stroyed it. 

The view of the city from the ocean is very grand. 



1 84 THE STRAITS. 

It sits like a queen of the sea, white and glistening, 
surrounded by water, the lofty lighthouse standing 
like a brilliant gem in her diadem. The lighthouse 
rises high out of and above a large fort built upon a 
lofty rock, standing in the sea in advance of the city. 
Cadiz seen from the south-west, as we turn toward 
Gibraltar, and looking on her massive sea-girt wall, 
presents the appearance of one grand fortification, 
crowned by the cathedral with its lofty tower, which 
is seen rising far above all. That part of Andalusia 
along which we are now sailing is full of interest, 
and its history is older than that of Rome. It was 
called Tartesus. 

The shores of Spain, from Cadiz to the Straits, 
are a series of high, barren bluffs and long sand 
points extending into the ocean. Here and there 
a windmill or an ancient watch-tower is seen on the 
highest points on the shore, while far inland rise the 
snow-clad mountains of Andalusia, with occasionally 
a white village seen nestling among the valleys. In 
two or three hours we come in sight of a long, low 
point stretching into the sea, with a lighthouse on 
its extremity. This is Trafalgar, off which the 
great battle between Nelson and the combined 
forces of the French and Spanish was fought, Oct. 
21, 1805, which has given England ever since the 
supremacy of the seas. We pass over the very spot 
where Nelson lost his life. It is a place which might 



THE STRAITS. 1 85 

well inspire the great hero. The enemy were before 
him in magnificent array. From the deck of his 
ship he could look through the gates of the Atlantic 
and the Mediterranean. The headlands of Europe 
and Africa, rising on either hand, were before him. 
Here he raised his famous signal, " England expects 
every man to do his duty." It is said that before one of 
his other battles he said, " Westminster Abbey or vic- 
tory ! " Strange that after such a victory, purchased 
by such a death, the English nation should not have 
laid him in Westminster Abbey. His remains sleep 
in St. Paul's, where the Iron Duke has also been 
laid to rest beside him. Passing Trafalgar, we now 
enter the Straits of Gibraltar, which may be said to 
commence on the African side with Cape Spartel, 
and on the European side with Trafalgar. They 
are here about thirty miles wide, and they grow 
narrower, until at Tariffa, in Spain, they are only ten 
miles in width. A current sets through them of 
about two and a half miles per hour. The water 
changes immediately as we come within the in- 
fluence of the current from green to a blue black. 
The line of color is distinctly marked, and can be 
seen for miles. The change of color is produced 
probably by passing from shallow to deep water. 

The Atlas chain of mountains in Africa now rise 
before us in one confused mass of lofty peaks, ex- 
tending from the coast far inland. Opposite Tariffa 



1 86 THE STRAITS. 

we are in the narrowest part of the Straits. Here, 
on a ledge of rocks entending far into the Straits, 
is a large fortification and a lighthouse. This fort 
commands the Straits more than Gibraltar does, as 
the Straits opposite Gibraltar are twenty miles wide. 
But it is much more easily assailed than Gibraltar, 
and not so easily defended. Here rises a magnifi- 
cent lighthouse, 135 feet high, which can be seen 
forty miles away. Tariffa in former times has been 
a place of great importance and the scene of many 
a gallant contest between the Moors and Christians. 
Here the Moors first landed in 711, and the first 
chief who landed, Tarif Malik, gave a name to the 
town, and here the Moors levied contributions on 
every passing ship, and hence our English word 
tariff. 

The sail from here through the Straits is a mag- 
nificent one. The channel begins to widen into 
deep bays, between long headlands on either side. 
The white towers of Tangiers rise at the south. 
Ships of every description are hurrying through the 
great highway before a fair wind, with all their 
canvas spread. To the south-east arises the high, 
rocky front of Abyle, the African Pillar of Hercules. 
Soon around another long point, far to the north- 
east, we descry just the low south point of the rock 
Gibraltar. As we round the point more and more 
the view extends, and we see farther and farther up. 



THE STRAITS. 1 8/ 

until we catch a glimpse of Calpe, the European Pillar 
of Hercules, and soon the whole magnificent rock 
stands before us, the most impregnable fortress of 
the world, the object of a hundred battles during 
a thousand years gone by. 



GIBRALTAR AND CONSTANTINOPLE. 

There are two places of supreme importance in 
the present history of the world — Gibraltar and 
Constantinople. One controls all the commerce 
between America, Eastern Europe, and all the 
nations which group themselves around the Medi- 
terranean. The other is the key to all the commerce 
between the Black Sea, its tributaries, the country 
drained by the Danube and the Mediterranean, and 
the outside world. Besides this, Constantinople, 
standing at the only point where the Continents of 
Europe and of Asia meet, in these days of railroads 
and telegraphs, is to be the point at which will 
converge, and from whence will radiate, all the over- 
land traffic between these two continents. England 
laid her hand on Gibraltar 174 years ago, and has 
held it ever since. She took it by force when fight- 
ing for Spain, and refused to hand it over to the 
rightful owner when the war of the Succession was 
finished. By force she has held it ever since. 

By all rules of international law, and by all con- 
siderations of equity, it belongs to Spain. It is a 
part of her territory ; it is a constant threat and 
humiliation to her. But with England, as in the 



GIBRALTAR AND CONSTANTINOPLE. igg 

case of Malta, Cyprus and India, might makes right. 
We are not disposed to quarrel with this principle, 
which, whether we recognize it in our Code of In- 
ternational Law or not, is a principle acted on by 
all the enlightened nations of the v/orld. 

Put the opportunity in the way of any great na- 
tion to aggrandize or protect itself at the expense 
of a weaker, and what nation does not find a good 
excuse for so doing in law and in morals? But if 
England can hold Gibraltar and Malta, why should 
not Russia hold Constantinople, if she can take it ? 
Why is not might right, here also as well as at 
Gibraltar ? The Russian says, " Why should we, 
one of the great powers, and even the greatest 
power in Europe, with 90 millions of people, with 
one-seventh of the territory of the world, be shut 
out from the Mediterranean ? Why should our prog- 
ress and expanding energies be cramped and shut 
in, because of the envy of the English nation? If 
England can hold Gibraltar by force, why cannot 
we hold Constantinople ? " There is no principle 
of law or justice on which England has acted for 
the past one hundred years, which would prevent 
Russia from holding Constantinople if she can get 
it. 

The occupation of Gibraltar by the English has 
been a constant source of complaint by Spain for a 
whole century. Not only is it humiliating to her 



IQO GIBRALTAR. 

to have a foreign fortress on her soil, with its guns 
turned upon her dominions, but its occupation is a 
constant source of trouble from the smuggling of 
goods from Gibraltar into Spain. Mr. Bright ac- 
knowledged to me that England has no right to 
Gibraltar, and only holds it by the law of force, and 
at an immense expense, and that he would be will- 
ing to cede it to them again. I asked if he would 
be willing to turn it over with all its formidable 
fortifications and guns, and with its present strength 
for doing evil to the commerce of the world ? He 
said no ; that he would dismantle it and, by treaty, 
have it stripped of its ability to threaten the com- 
merce of other nations. He said Mr. Cobden once 
told him, after he had been traveling in Spain, that 
if the English would cede Gibraltar to Spain, they 
could obtain a treaty from Spain in relation to 
duties and comm.erce which would be worth millions 
of pounds annually to England. Now it costs Eng- 
land $1,200,000 dollars annually. We do not won- 
der, however, that Englishmen hold on to this as 
one of the jewels in the " crown of the Ocean 
Queen." It accommodates from 6,000 to 8,000 
troops, who, after staying here for one year, are 
acclimated and prepared for the hotter climate of 
India. It is one of the chain of fortresses on her 
grand highway to India ; Malta, Cyprus, Aden and 
Bombay being the others. This is the first great 



GIBRALTAR. I9I 

coaling depot on the line from England to the East, 
and these depots for coal are absolutely necessary 
for a steam marine ; for no war vessel, at its highest 
efficiency, can carry more than six or eight days' 
supply of coal. England thus maintains this line 
of fortifications from her own shores to India, so 
that her steam marine is irresistible by any other 
power, and she is literally the mistress of the Medi- 
terranean. She, at Gibraltar, holds the key of this 
great sea, and controls its commerce. It is true 
that the Straits are twenty miles wide at Gibraltar, 
and none of its 80-ton guns can reach the opposite 
shore, yet they have only to station across the 
channel a few of their ironclads, supported by the 
harbor and fortress of Gibraltar, and they com- 
pletely dominate it. If England could always be 
at peace with all the world, she is the very best 
power to hold Gibraltar. But suppose she was at 
war with America — not one of our ships could safely 
pass the straits. 

It is too late for the nations of the world to com- 
plain of the occupation of Gibraltar and Malta. 
The right has become prescriptive ; but what we 
do contend for is that England cannot, with any 
consistency, object to other nations occupying 
strongholds on the map of the world which do not 
belong to her. 

England has not a foot of land on the Continent 



192 GIBRALTAR. 

of Europe excepting Gibraltar, and probably never 
will have ; but every Englishman who sails into the 
harbor of Gibraltar, and from the deck of his ship 
looks up the sloping sides of this rock, three miles 
long, feels and knows that it is worth more than 
any whole kingdom on the Continent. He sees, 
at a glance, that the power which holds this 
holds the Mediterranean. He sees how impregnable 
it is, and that all the navies of the world could not 
take it. He sees the line of granite wall, stretching 
along the water from the perpendicular eastern face 
all around the western side and to the northern face, 
surmounted by eighty-ton guns, pointing in every 
direction. All along up the slope of the rock, wher- 
ever a battery can be placed, there he sees these 
black, one-eyed monsters looking down upon him. 
From the deck of the ship in the bay is the best 
place to get a good view of this fortress. The town 
consists of two parts, both situate on the western 
side, near the water. The residence for civihans and 
for business is on the northerly end of the western 
side. Then comes the parade ground ; then a beau- 
tiful park, called the Alameda, with walks, mini- 
ature lakes, bridges, rustic seats, and trees and 
flowers of all kinds ; and then on the south-westerly 
side are situated the houses of the officers and garri- 
sons for the soldiers. 

The town of Gibraltar — that is, the civilians' quar- 



GIBRALTAR. 1 93 

ters — is built on the slope which rises quite sud- 
denly from the western side of the Rock. Street 
rises above street for hundreds of feet, and in the 
evening, when the houses are lighted, it has much 
the appearance of the old town of Edinburgh 
viewed from the lower town. It has a population of 
about eighteen thousand, composed of all races 
under the sun, and clothed in every garb known to 
mankind. The largest portion of the people are 
Roman Catholics. Then the Jews come next in 
numbers ; they have four synagogues. The Protest- 
ants are next in number, and then Mohammedans. 
The inhabitants are traders, and smuggling seems to 
be the chief part of their business. Thousands of 
pounds of tobacco, beside immense quantities of 
other goods, are smuggled into Spain from Gibraltar 
annually ; and when it is remembered that one of 
the chief sources of revenue to Spain is tobacco, it 
may be seen what a thorn in the side of Spain is 
this English fortress. These goods are carried off 
from Gibraltar in small boats at night to the coast 
of Spain, where the contrabandista are ready to re- 
ceive them and carry them into the mountains, and 
thence to all parts of the kingdom. 

The climate here, except from July to October, is 

salubrious and tempered by the sea breezes ; but 

during the summer months, when the Levanter 

prevails, it is unhealthy ; wounds will not heal 

9 



194 GIBRALTAR, 

then, and diseases prevail among children. During 
these months the people resort to Africa, along the 
shores of the Atlantic, west of the Straits, where 
they get the Atlantic breezes and the climate is 
salubrious even in summer. There are no springs 
on the Rock. Immense reservoirs are built on 
different parts above the town, for storing the 
water which falls in rain. Their capacity is about 
twelve thousand tons. There are good hotels here, 
kept by Englishmen, and everything is done and 
served in the English style. Every one you meet at 
the hotels is English, while in the streets there is a 
strange mixture of all nationalities. But everything 
you see and hear shows you the military character 
and government of the place. 

When you land outside of the walls you cannot 
pass the gates without a permit from a government 
officer, which is a permission for you to remain in 
the town for five days, when it is supposed you will 
obtain a renewal of the permit. The gates are 
closed at sunset and opened at sunrise, at the signal 
by the booming of the Rock gun on the northern 
point. If you are without the walls after sunset, 
you must stay out all night. If you are out of your 
house after midnight, you are arrested. 

You enter the town through the immense gates 
of a fortification guarded by soldiers. Barracks, 
men in uniform or marching in ranks, are seen on 



GIBRALTAR. 1 95 

every hand. The fife, drum and bugle are heard at 
all hours. There are eight thousand soldiers sta- 
tioned here. They are under constant drill, and a 
grand parade of England's best troops may be seen 
on the parade ground twice a week, at ten o'clock 
in the morning. It is a fine sight to stand, a little 
before this hour, on the parade ground, and to see 
the different companies, clad in their various uni- 
forms, winding down the numerous paths from all 
directions toward the parade, their burnished arms 
glistening in the sun as they march to the music of 
the bugle and the drum. On the parade ground we 
saw a company of Moors from Morocco, dressed in 
the Arab style. By the permission of the English 
government they are here trained by British tac- 
ticians and then sent to Morocco to become officers. 
They were, physically, the finest-looking company 
on the parade. 

Gibraltar is used by England as a half-way station 
to India, and particularly as a place for acclimating 
her troops for that latitude. Soldiers, by remaining 
here two or three years, are prepared for the more 
enervating influences of a tropical country. For- 
merly all fortifications and public works were built 
by civilians ; but latterly all this work is done by 
artisans who are found among the troops, who, for 
a little extra pay, are glad to relieve the monotony 
of a soldier's life by labor of this kind. Gibraltar 



19^ GIBRALTAR. 

consumes, but produces absolutely nothing. All 
the meats, poultry and eggs consumed there are 
brought from Tangiers in Africa, and all their vege- 
tables are brought from the Spanish towns. 

GIBRALTAR. — NATURAL FEATURES. 

After passing the Straits the northerly coast bears 
almost due east for about fifteen miles, when it 
turns suddenly for about twenty miles in a circular 
Hne to the north-west, then to the north, and then 
to the east. At this point the long, wedge-like 
promontory of Gibraltar extends from the coast 
due south five miles into the sea, being about one- 
half mile wide. The northern end of this strip of 
land for one and a half miles is a sandy beach and 
belongs to Spain, and a line of white sentry boxes, 
filled with guards to prevent smuggling, is stretched 
across from shore to shore. The next four hundred 
yards to the south is called " neutral ground," on 
which there is no erection, and not a tree, bush or 
rock is to be seen. It is no man's land, and no 
power has any jurisdiction over it. Next south of 
the neutral ground commences the English jurisdic- 
tion. A line of blue sentry boxes on their side also 
stretches across the promontory, about one-half mile 
in distance from shore to shore. 

About one-half mile to the south of the northerly 
limit of the English jurisdiction, rises abruptly out 



GIBRALTAR. 1 97 

of the dead sea level of sand, 1,400 feet high, the 
Rock of Gibraltar, which extends south three miles 
into the Mediterranean. There are three points 
higher somewhat than the remainder of the Rock : 
one at the northerly end, one in the middle, and 
one at the southerly end. The latter is called Eu- 
ropa Point or Calpe, and is the European Pillar of 
Hercules. It looks down upon and through the 
Straits into the Atlantic. The central point is used 
as a lighthouse and signal station. From it all 
vessels approaching the Straits from the east are 
seen at the distance of thirty or forty miles, and 
their arrival is immediately telegraphed to London. 
The view from this point is sublimity itself. Far 
to the eastward the blue Mediterranean is covered 
with white sails, all converging toward the Straits. 
Twenty miles across the Straits rises the African 
Pillar of Hercules, and far away to the south-west 
stretches the Atlas Mountains of Africa, while to 
the north and west arise, peak after peak, the snow- 
clad mountains of Andalusia. Looking to the west, 
immediately at your feet, is the Bay of Algeciras, or 
the harbor of Gibraltar, the westerly and the norths 
erly sides formed by the circular line of the Straits 
and the easterly side by the promontory of Gibral- 
tar. This harbor is in width about six miles from 
the Rock to the westerly shore, but has a wide 
entrance to the south and is much exposed to the 



198 GIBRALTAR. 

Levanters and southerly winds. The anchorage is 
not good on account of a rocky bottom. 

The town and fortifications are on the western 
side of the Rock, which rises by a gradual slope 
from the water's edge to the very top. The eastern 
side of the Rock, for its whole length of three miles, 
is one precipitous, almost perpendicular wall from 
1,200 to 1,400 feet high, where Nature has reared 
her everlasting defences, inaccessible to man. You 
may look down from these dizzy battlements to the 
Mediterranean surging and roaring below and find 
no place where an invading foe can obtain a foot- 
hold. Not a gun is placed on this eastern side, for 
none is needed. The north front also, looking down 
on the narrow beach which connects with the main- 
land, is very precipitous and rises almost perpen- 
dicularly 1,350 feet. On the highest northern point 
is placed the Rock gun, which is fired at sunrise and 
at sunset, and by which the gates of the town are 
opened and shut. From the town, which is at the 
foot of the western slope, beautiful roads run in 
zigzag directions up to the very top of the Rock. 
The southern extremity, or Calpe, or Europa Point, 
which looks off toward the Straits, gradually breaks 
down and extends, like a plowshare, one-half mile 
into the sea. 

Such are some of the natural features of this 
great fortress. 



GIBRALTAR. 1 99 

GIBRALTAR. — ITS DEFENCES. 

It needs defence only where it can be attacked. 
The eastern perpendicular wall, as we have said, 
needs no defence. Europa, or the southern point, 
and the western side, can be approached from the 
sea and the northern side from the land. The de- 
fences on the southern, western and northern sides 
are marvelous. For one hundred and seventy years 
the English nation has been exhausting its skill 
to render it impregnable. The first defence is a 
granite outer wall, ^tending entirely around the 
western side of the Rock, along the water line from 
Europa Point to the cliff on the northern extremity. 
This wall is eight feet thick and fifteen or twenty feet 
high. It is a series of bastions and batteries and is 
pierced with port-holes tier above tier for three miles 
in extent. From these port-holes and from the 
glacis on the top of the wall are seen pointing in 
every possible direction those huge eighty-ton guns 
which look like an army of black, sleeping fiends. 

Europa Point is the most exposed to attack from 
the water and is most magnificently fortified. Tier 
above tier of immense walls and fort above fort 
filled with guns rise on this point for two hundred 
feet. The north front protects against any ap- 
proach from the land. Six hundred and fifty feet 
above the water a gallery one-half mile in length 



200 GIBRALTAR. 

has been tunneled into the Rock across the north- 
ern front and near the face of the chff, and one 
hundred feet above that is another gallery, and 
above that another. There are two and a half miles 
of these galleries along this northern cliff. From 
them port-holes have been opened to the northern 
end of the cliff, through which immense guns frown 
down on Spain and the narrow approach from the 
land across the neutral ground. These galleries are 
about twelve feet wide, and the rooms for the guns 
hollowed out along their course are about twenty- 
feet square. Rooms also, for storing shot, shell, 
powder and supplies are scattered along these gal- 
leries high up in the heart of the Rock. At the 
eastern extremity of one of these galleries is a large 
hall excavated, called the Hall of St. George, where 
Nelson was once entertained. There are batteries 
also on the ledges outside on this northern cliff, 
which fairly bristles with these great guns, and, like 
a huge giant stands scowling ominously down upon 
Spain from these deep-mouthed port-holes tier above 
tier. On the exterior northern point is the great 
Rock gun, which, on the morning of the Queen's 
birthday, booms forth its grand salute ; the next 
battery below takes up the fire, then the next gal- 
lery, and so on down and dov/n, until the shore 
batteries shake the whole Rock by their thunders, 
when the troops close up the grand salute to the 



GIBRALTAR. 201 

sovereign Queen, who, sitting in her little isle, 
holds the keys of the world's fortress and sways her 
sceptre over some of the fairest portions of the 
globe. 

GIBRALTAR IMPREGNABLE. — ITS HISTORY. 

Gibraltar is impregnable. With provisions and 
water for a long siege, manned by 10,000 men, all 
the navies of the world combined could make no im- 
pression on her walls. And no army, however 
numerous, could approach it across the narrow 
sandy strip of neutral ground which connects it 
with the mainland. This approach can be sub- 
merged, and a thousand guns from the galleries 
along the northern face frown down upon it. 

We had a rare opportunity of seeing in operation 
the defensive qualities of this great fortress. Lord 
Napier had just been appointed commander of 
the fortress. It is customary for every new com- 
mander to visit all the batteries and to see all the 
guns along the shore batteries fired. We were 
standing on the top of the central rock at the 
signal station when this grand display opened. The 
commander, with his staff, commenced with the 
southern batteries on the shore, and passed on 
northward from one to another along a line of two 
and a half miles. First we would see the fire belch- 
ing forth ; then clouds of smoke rising and rolling up 
9* 



202 GIBRALTAR. 

the sides of the rock ; then slowly broke upon the 
ear the thunder of the huge guns, which shook the 
mountain to its foundations and re-echoed back 
from the rock until it was lost far away amid the 
mountains of Spain and Africa. About twenty ar- 
tillerymen manned each gun. At a certain word of 
command they put in a cartridge ; at another they 
rammed it home ; at another they ran the gun out 
of the port-hole ; at another elevated or lowered her 
muzzle, as the lieutenant sighted her; at another 
they pulled the lanyard which fires the cap. 

It was a magnificent sight, and those eighty-ton 
guns, belching forth fire and smoke, and shaking 
the rock by their thunder, gave a vivid idea of what 
the terrible reality would be were the thousands of 
these black monsters, bristling all over the great for- 
tress, turned on some devoted enemy. Except by 
treachery or starvation, Gibraltar never can be 
taken. 

Its history for two thousand years past has been a 
romance. It has been associated with the great 
struggles between Paganism and Christianity, and 
between Christianity and Mohammedanism. The 
Phoenicians, as long ago as the time of Jonah, knew 
the Straits. They called the Rock Kalpe. It seems 
never to have been occupied as a fortress until the 
Moors, under the fiery Tarik, took it in 711. He 
called it after his own name, Gebal Tarik, or the Hill 



GIBRALTAR. 203 

of Tarik, which name, through the transmutation of 
language, has become Gibraltar. An old castle is 
still standing about half-way up the rock, which was 
built by the Moors in the eighth century. 

Gibraltar was taken from the Moors in 1309 by 
Spain, since which the arms of the city have been 
a castle with a gate, and a key hanging from it, sig- 
nifying that this was the key of the Straits, as it has 
ever since been. In 1333 the Moors again took the 
fortress, and held it till 1462. The English and Dutch 
forces took it in the war of the succession, while 
fighting in the cause of Archduke Charles in 1704, 
and although at first they considered it a ^' barren 
rock " and a " useless charge," the English have ever 
since held it. It was besieged in 1779 by the allied 
powers of France and Spain, and the siege lasted 
four years. It was conducted with all the skill 
and with all the accessories then known to the 
assailants. But on the famous 13th of Septem- 
ber, 1783, their formidable floating batteries were 
destroyed by the English under " Old Elliott." He 
saved the jewel to the English crown, and here he 
died, and here he was buried, and his monument 
now stands ever overlooking the scene of his heroic 
defence. 

Gibraltar is an English Colony ; the law of Eng- 
land is administered in Gibraltar. The Judge Ad- 
vocate has cognizance of all cases in civil matters. 



204 GIBRALTAR. 

and an appeal lies from his decision to the Privy 
Council in England in all cases involving over ;£"300. 
There is a large police force, under a police magis- 
trate, who is charged with keeping the peace among 
civilians ; but the military code is administered in the 
garrison. 



TANGIER. 

About thirty miles distant from Gibraltar, diago- 
nally across the Straits, lies Tangier, the seaport of 
Morocco, situated at the head of a long open bay. 
Gibraltar could hardly exist without Tangier. It 
obtains from thence all its beef, chickens and eggs. 
The Rock of Gibraltar is absolutely barren. Not a 
vegetable or a spire of grass grows there. Two or 
three times a week a steamer plies between Gibraltar 
and Tangier for traffic. Here reside the Consuls 
and Ministers to Morocco. The city is built of 
white stone, on a hill sloping backward from the 
shore to a lofty eminence, crowned with a castle, the 
residence of the Governor, and containing the prison, 
filled with the most disgusting specimens of human- 
ity in filth and rags, all huddled together in one 
room. There were fifty or more of the most des- 
perate-looking men, some with chains on their legs. 
Here they are allowed to starve, unless their friends 
help them, for they receive nothing but a little bread 
and water. 

The will of the Emperor, as he is called, is the 
law, and all crimes are punished according to the 
whim of the pasha who governs the province. But 



206 TANGIER. 

summary punishment produces a good effect, and 
crimes are of rare occurrence. The captain of the 
steamer told me he often brought from Tangier to 
Gibraltar fifty thousand silver dollars at a time, and 
that he had never lost one, and that droves of cattle 
are constantly coming from the interior, and not one 
was ever stolen. The punishment for petty theft is 
to be put naked on a donkey and driven through the 
streets by soldiers, who lash the back of the victim 
until it streams with blood, while he is obliged to 
proclaim aloud his crimes. If a robbery is commit- 
ted on travelers in any district, the Government levies 
on the district twice the amount stolen, and the 
Sheik is obliged to collect it. Any traveler into the 
rural districts is furnished by his Consul with a 
Government soldier as guard. The soldier is respons- 
ible with his life for the return of his traveler. 

Tangier has about 12,000 inhabitants, about one- 
half of whom are Jews and the remainder Mohamme- 
dans from all Arabic-speaking countries. The ances- 
tors of the Jews fled from Spain when banished by 
Charles V. There are no fine buildings in the city. It 
has two mosques of small dimensions, but so sacred 
that no Christian is allowed to set foot in them. The 
most striking objects in Tangier are the Moorish men 
and Jewish women. There are no finer specimens of 
humanity than some of the Moors we saw here. They 
were six and a half feet tall, of fine proportions, digni- 



TANGIER, 207 

fied carriage, high forehead, black beard, large, soft 
black eyes, with a natural dignity and grace, and a 
walk like a king. When dressed, with a fine robe of 
white hanging gracefully over his shoulders, with a 
white turban, bound with red or green, and everything 
about him scrupulously clean, he is a picture of all 
that is grand in the human frame. We could under- 
stand the love of Desdemona for the Moor of Ven- 
ice. These are the true descendants of the Berber 
race which conquered Spain, and who, single-handed, 
were always more than a match for the bravest and 
proudest knights of Spain in the days of Ferdinand 
and Isabella. It is said that the Queen refused to 
allow her knights to accept the challenges of the 
Moors to single combat, for the Moors were found 
to be the best warriors. 

The Moors who fled from Granada came to this 
part of Africa. They brought with them their title 
deeds to the lands held by them in Spain, and their 
descendants now in Tangier and Tetuan still, after 
the lapse of four centuries, hold these deeds against 
the day when they shall return across the Straits 
and be restored to their former possessions, which 
they firmly believe is to be their destiny. 

Moorish women are never seen in the streets, but 
I am told by ladies who reside here that they are 
finer looking than the men. Jewish women are seen 
in the street, and we can testify to their great 



208 TANGIER, 

beauty. They have fine eyes, rich brunette com- 
plexion, a graceful walk, and are well proportioned 
and always well dressed. A Moorish wedding is the 
thing to see in Tangier. The bridegroom pays for 
his bride to her father $40 and upward, according to 
the means and station of the parties. The mar- 
riage is a civil contract entered into, written out, 
and signed before a notary. On the night of the 
wedding, after the marriage, the bride is carried in 
a covered chair through the streets, with music and 
fireworks, to the house of the groom. There is a 
general entertainment for men in one room and 
women in another, at the house of the bride's 
father, on the eve of the wedding, where tea, coffee 
and sweets are given. The ladies are allowed to 
see the bride dressed, and I was told by some 
English ladies at the British Consulate that the 
dress of the bride in high life was magnificent. All 
the dowry of the bride goes for this, as it sometimes 
does in other enlightened countries. The wedding 
is witnessed only by the parents of the bride and 
bridegroom. The ceremony is at the house of the 
bride's father, and never at the mosque, for the 
women go to the mosque only once a year. The 
bridegroom sees his bride for the first time on the 
night of the wedding, when he takes her to his own 
home. I asked my guide, a splendid-looking 
Moor : '' Suppose he does not like his wife when 



TANGIER. 209 

he sees her, what then ? " Said he, " Then he can 
get another." 

Another thing to see in Tangier is the market on 
market day. It is held just outside the walls, on 
the landward side, in a large square, where almost 
every imaginable thing is for sale by men in every 
imaginable garb. Camels from Fez file in with their 
loads ; donkeys from the country with eggs, chickens 
and vegetables. There are oranges by the million, 
grain, salt, and dry goods. All these things are scat- 
tered about in heaps, and beside them squat groups 
of Arabs, each with a loose-flowing garment, like a 
cloak, with a hood thrown over the head ; while 
walking about you see the aristrocratic Moor, with 
his large turban, white, flowing dress and yellow slip- 
pers ; the rich Jew in his. broadcloth mantle and 
silk vest ; the black merchant from Timbuctoo, and 
the dark African, with his face scarred by his cap- 
tors — all meet here in one strange medley, seen no- 
where else except in Mohammedan cities. 

Tangier ought to be and will be a great city. It 
is situate in the midst of the Straits, where passes 
the commerce of all nations, and where the com- 
merce of North-eastern Africa, even to the interior 
deserts, centres, and it has a good climate. Here those 
seeking health may come, and here the artist may 
find a Moorish city full of quaint subjects for his pen- 
cil and a country around full of all natural grandeur. 



MOROCCO. 

The northern coast of Africa was once one of the 
strongholds of the false prophets, and from thence 
they threatened the liberty of Europe. They first 
broke up into independent powers, and now these 
have nearly run their race. Morocco is now a king- 
dom of about 230,000 square miles, or one-sixth 
larger than France. It extends along the Atlantic 
from the Straits southward from 700 to 800 miles, 
and along the Mediterranean from the Straits about 
250 miles, and south from the Mediterranean about 
500 miles, and reaches into the Desert. It is com- 
posed of mountainous ranges, which run north-east 
from the Atlantic to the Mediterranean, with fertile 
intervening valleys, which are well watered by rivers 
which flow from the water-shed into the Atlantic 
and the Mediterranean on one side, and into the 
Desert, where they are swallowed up, on the other. 
One of these rivers — the Muluya — is 400 miles 
long, and is the boundary between Morocco and 
Algeria. 

Fez, which is about 75 or 100 miles south of the 
Straits is the capital where the Emperor — or the Sul- 
tan, as he is also called — resides. It is in a wide, fer- 



MOROCCO. 211 

tile valley, between parallel chains of mountains. 
Between these mountains the climate is delightful, 
scarcely ever falling below 40 degrees or rising above 
90. The slopes of the mountains looking down on 
the Straits and facing the Atlantic are beautifully 
wooded and afford delightful winter residences for 
invalids from Europe and America, and summer resi- 
dences for the inhabitants of Gibraltar and the 
southern coast of Spain. The mountains shield 
them from the hot winds of the Desert, and the 
cool breezes of the Atlantic preserve a salubrious 
temperature. There is a wide range of products, 
among which are wheat, barley, maize, rice, sugar- 
cane, figs, pomegranates, lemons, oranges, dates, 
cotton, tobacco and hemp. 

It is easy to see that such a country, with such 
a climate and such a variety of products, is destined 
to sustain a large and civilized population, and in 
the near future it will be one of the most im- 
portant parts of Africa. It would not surprise us 
to awake some morning and find that it had 
been annexed to England. They would then con- 
trol both ends and the middle of the Mediterranean. 
Two-thirds of the entire trade of Morocco is now in 
the hands of British merchants. Caravans of camels 
from Soudan and Southern Morocco may be seen 
filing into Tangier — the only port of Morocco — 
loaded with drugs, red, yellow and green leather, 



212 MOROCCO, 

wool, hides, cotton and tobacco ; and they bear back 
cotton, Hnen and muslin goods, sugar and tea, even 
as far as Timbuctoo, all of which comes from Eng- 
land. Immense amounts of beef, eggs and poultry 
are taken to Gibraltar. The captain of the Gibraltar 
steamer told me that some days he carried across 
the Straits 500,000 eggs, which cost in Tangier 80 
cents per 100, and oranges, we found, were 25 cents 
per 100. Beef was sold for $7 per 100 pounds. One 
hundred head of cattle were taken to Gibraltar on 
the steamer with us. They were brought along- 
side in a scow. A noose was put round their horns, 
which by a rope was fastened to a steam wind- 
lass on board the steamer. In one-half minute 
the animal is raised by his horns into the air before 
he has time to struggle, and swung round over the 
steamer and then let down into the hold. 

The Sultan is supposed to be the owner of the 
soil, and it is raited, as in Eg>^pt, to tenants at a 
very low rate, and the land descends to the heir of 
the tenant, subject to the rental. The taxes are 
very light, but the revenue is raised chiefly from ex- 
port and import duty. The Sultan owes a national 
debt, incurred in the war with Spain, but he pays his 
interest, and in this respect his government does not 
suffer in comparison with that of many of our States. 
As he is an arbitrary prince, and his word is the law 
of the land, he has only to impose a tax on one or 



MOROCCO. 213 

more of the twenty-nine districts and the governor 
must collect it. 

Not only are there beautiful winter residences 
along the wooded slopes of the Straits, but the 
means of living are abundant and cheap, and the 
sports are excellent. There are here plenty of par- 
tridge, hare and rabbits, but the great sport is the 
boar hunt. We saw on Sunday morning a company 
of about twenty ladies and gentlemen, English and 
French, on horseback, leaving Tangier for the hills 
about ten miles distant. The hunters are allowed 
no weapon but a spear. From fifty to one hundred 
men are employed to beat up the bush and drive 
the animals out into the open, when the sport com- 
mences by running down the boar. When he turns 
at bay he is an ugly customer, but the poor dogs and 
horses generally bear the brunt of the fight. 



MALAGA. 

The traveler should either approach or leave 
Gibraltar by water. From the harbor and the 
Straits only can you see the mighty proportions of 
this fortress at one glance, and see how grandly iso- 
lated it stands, dominating the great highway of the 
nations. 

We sailed from Gibraltar in a small steamer for 
Malaga, a distance of about fifty miles. We pass 
from the northwest side of the Rock entirely around 
to the north-east side of it, passing Rock Gun Point 
on the north, under the line of frowning batteries, 
rank above rank on the west side, past the signal 
tower on the highest central point, and bend around 
Calpe, the southern point from whose tower you can 
see over the mountains into the harbor of Cadiz 
seventy miles away to the north-west. From every 
different point of observation the rock presents an 
entirely different appearance. Immediately on pass- 
ing the southern extremity, Europa Point, to the 
east, the Straits widen to the north, and here com- 
mences the Mediterranean. 

It is said by geologists that the sea was once 



MALAGA. 21 S 

separated from the Atlantic Ocean at the Straits, 
and that the two continents were here united. As 
we continue our course eastward the Rock is the 
one grand object in view, but always receding, until 
we reach and turn the headlands of Malaga, when it 
suddenly vanishes from sight. As we turn this long 
promontory, Malaga bursts upon our view, nestled 
between the mountains and the sea. 

It lies at the eastern extremity of a beautiful 
vega, 9 miles wide by i8 miles long, bounded by the 
snow-capped mountains of Granada on the north-east, 
by the mountains of Ronda on the north, and washed 
by the waves of the Mediterranean on the south. Its 
atmosphere is tempered in summer by the snow- 
clad mountains, and in winter by the sea-breezes 
from the shores of Africa. It is watered by artificial 
irrigation from the mountains. Nothing can sur- 
pass its fertility and the variety of its productions. 
The gardens in January were filled with roses and 
flowers ; immense orchards of oranges were on every 
hand loaded with fruit. The almond, the pome- 
granate, the palm, the sugar-cane, the grape, the 
olive, and all kinds of grain were abundant. 

As we were obliged to land from the steamer in 
little boats, we became the prey of boatmen who 
charged us what they pleased. They held our bag- 
gage until their demands were paid, while the 
policemen looked on as disinterested spectators, 



2l6 MALAGA. 

without interference, Boatmen, cabmen, and por- 
ters have their own way in most cities of Spain. 

Malaga has an air of thrift and business unusual 
for Spain. The streets are made narrow, for the 
summer climate requires this; but new streets are 
being opened, and large, fine houses are being 
erected. There are here manufactories of sugar and 
two cotton mills which employ 4,000 men, beside 
manufactories of iron, lead and licorice. The finest 
raisins are cured here, and certain kinds of wine are 
made here, such as the sweet muscatel and montilla, 
which have a wide reputation, but which are too deli- 
cate to be exported. The business streets are full of 
activity, and at night are brilliantly lighted. The 
cafes are numerous and large, well-lighted and dec- 
orated, and in the evening filled with all classes of 
the people, both rich and poor, high and low, much 
as if the Bowery boys and Fifth Avenue gentlemen 
should meet at Delmonico's. There seems to be less 
social distinction in Spain than in any other country. 
You will often meet a man clothed in rags ready to 
receive a gratuity. Yet his dilapidated cloak covers 
a haughty aristocrat, proud of his high descent, 
which secures him respect from those appparently 
above him in social life. In these cafes they sit 
around small tables, enjoy their sweet drinks with a 
few cheap cakes, every one talking vociferously, 
every one smoking, while a band of music adds a 



MALAGA. 217 

sweet element to the confusion. But there is no 
carousing, and no strong drink or drunkenness. In 
many of the cafes there are biUiard tables, plays, 
and dances. 

Malaga has a large modern cathedral built on the 
site of the grand mosque of the Moors of which 
nothing remains but a fine Gothic portal. The 
cathedral was commenced in 1538 and completed 
in 1 719, and combines some of the bad features of 
all modern styles of architecture. It has three lofty 
naves, with heavy massive Corinthian pillars with 
highly ornamented capitals, but without grace or 
beauty, and is surmounted by a lofty dome 300 feet 
high. The population is 110,000; the harbor is small 
but convenient, and filled with shipping. The hotels 
are large and airy, usually surrounding a spacious 
court with a fountain in the centre and filled with 
flowers. There are beautiful plazas in the city filled 
with trees and fountains. It has just completed 
water-works, which bring a great supply of cool, 
pure water from the mountains nine miles distant. 
Malaga has a history which reaches back to imme- 
morial antiquity. It was probably founded by the 
Phoenicians, and became in turn Carthagenian, Ro- 
man, Gothic, Moorish and Christian. Ferdinand 
and Isabella took it from the Moors in 1487, after 
a dreadful and protracted siege, in which the women 

and children perished from starvation. Heavy guns 
10 



21 8 MALAGA. 

called Lombards won the victory for the Christians. 
The Moors were, through all this struggle, a match 
for'the Christians in the open field, but powder and 
guns recently brought from Germany won the day. 
As Napoleon once said, "Providence was on the side 
which had the heaviest artillery." The wary Fer- 
dinand induced the people to surrender their money, 
jewels and property as part payment for their free- 
dom, and then gave them eight months in which to 
raise the balance among their friends. In this way 
he induced them not to secrete their valuables. 
After stripping 15,000 people of all they had and 
setting them to begging among their friends for the 
remainder of the ransom, he sold them all into per- 
petual slavery on their failure to pay the full amount. 
The ancient chronicles, as copied by Irving, describes 
the wail of these poor people when driven from 
their homes as heart-rending beyond description. 
To the stranger, Malaga seems one of the most 
delightful cities of Spain. The climate is especially 
adapted to invalids. It has a very dry atmosphere 
and constant sunlight. It is said that rain falls on 
only twenty-nine days in the year, and then only for 
a few hours in each day. Its climate is one of the 
most equable in Europe. In summer it is open to 
the breezes from the sea, and resort can be had to 
any altitude among the mountains. In winter it is 
sheltered from the winds by mountains at the north 



MALAGA. 219 

and east, so that frost is unknown. The snow-clad 
mountains are in sight on one side and the blue 
Mediterranean on the other. Surely this rich and 
smiling vega of Malaga, with all its beauty and 
fertility, with its sunlight and sea breezes, its moun- 
tains and the Mediterranean, is, as the Moors were 
accustomed to call it, " Paradise on Earth." 



MALAGA TO CORDOVA. 

We have only two ways of egress from Malaga, 
one by water along the coast north-east to Valencia, 
and the other by railroad northward to Cordova. 
As we desire to pass out of Spain by way of Valla^ 
dolid, Burgos and Irun, we take the latter. Our 
way lies to the north-west up through the vega for 
about twenty miles. In the suburbs of the city, we 
pass the large manufactories of wine, sugar and cot- 
ton ; then the beautiful villas of the rich citizens of 
Malaga, surrounded by gardens filled with every 
variety of tropical trees, fruits and flowers. Arti- 
ficial streams of water for irrigation are flowing on 
every hand. It is early in January and before seven 
o'clock in the morning, yet the air is genial and 
balmy as we rapidly ascend toward the mountains 
through this beautiful vega. As the sun rose over 
the lofty hills and threw its light into this valley, 
it seemed a fairy land too beautiful for this world. 



220 MALAGA TO CORDOVA. 

The air was fragrant from the groves of oranges, 
which extended for miles on every side, loaded with 
the golden fruit. The roses and the almond trees 
were in bloom. The sound of flowing waters from 
the hills was everywhere heard, and the swift 
streams glistened through the green foliage in every 
direction. The Moors here brought agriculture to 
a state of perfection. And here their works for 
irrigation still continue and carry water to every 
tree in the whole vega. The mountains, covered 
with perpetual snow, are the perennial source of 
these waters during the summer, and no stream is 
allowed to run its free course to the sea. It is 
captured far up among the hills, diverted in all 
directions, divided and subdivided as it descends, go- 
ing from farm to farm, from garden to garden, from 
tree to tree, until its poetry and even itself is lost 
in practical utility. Here the palm and the grape 
abound and here are produced the famous wines, 
the Muscatel and Montilla, while the common wine, 
Valdepenas, furnished free in all hotels in Spain, is 
here remarkably fine, and can be purchased for thirty 
or forty cents per gallon. Having passed up this 
charming valley about twenty miles, we come face 
to face with the mountains, with no way apparent 
through them. Suddenly we strike upon and follow 
the little stream, the Guadalhorce, piercing its way 
through the wildest gloomy gorges, with perpen- 



MALAGA TO CORDOVA. 221 

dicular walls of rock on each side, grand, weird and 
strange, where the little stream and the railroad 
contend for the passage. This wonderful gorge — 
called by the Spaniards the Hoyo or the grave — -is 
equal to the wildest scenery of Switzerland, and 
almost rivals the royal gorge of the Arkansas in 
Colorado. With scarcely room for a locomotive to 
pass, we wind between the rocky wall through miles 
of tunnels, under the mountain, along by precipices, 
over bridges and viaducts, until we emerge upon a 
high plateau 1400 feet above Malaga. Here the 
whole aspect of nature is changed. Instead of the 
warm salubrious air of the vega of Malaga, where no 
frost ever comes, we breathe the crisp, sharp air of 
the mountains, with frost and ice all around us. 
We are now on the high plateau of central Spain, 
and are approaching Teba, a small place where are 
situated the estates of the ex-Emxpress Eugenie. Be- 
fore her marriage she was countess of Teba. From 
her lofty throne she has descended to again take her 
place as countess of a little domain far up among 
the hills of Andalusia ; so easily do they make and 
unmake emperors and empresses, kings and queens, 
in France and Spain. Here we bid farewell to 
orange groves, the palm and the vine, and now come 
upon immense orchards of olives. They cover the 
whole country, hills, valleys and plains. As far as the 
eye can reach it is one continuous forest of green, 



222 MALAGA TO CORDOVA. 

with here and there an immense mill for grinding 
the fruit standing upon the hills. The distant moun- 
tain sides are covered with immense flocks of sheep 
guarded by shepherds. At Cordova we strike the 
road which brought us from Madrid, and by this we 
return to the capital. 



MADRID TO BAYONNE. 

The distance from Madrid to the frontier of 
France is about 400 miles. The journey can be 
made in twenty hours of continuous traveHng. It 
will take us through Avila, Medina del Campo, Val- 
ladolid and Burgos. Each of these places is worthy 
of a visit. About seventy-five miles from Madrid 
we reach 

AVILA, 

a little city of about six thousand inhabitants, set 
upon a hill with an extended view of plain on one 
side and mountains on the other. It is beautiful for 
situation, surrounded by a perfect wall of granite 40 
feet high and 12 feet thick, which is surmounted by 
towers, so that the city was once considered an im- 
pregnable fortress. 

Its altitude is so great, and its surroundings of 
vega and mountains so delightful, that it affords a 
cool and favorite summer resort for the citizens of 
Madrid. It has a cathedral commenced in the 
eleventh century, and numerous churches, some of 
them made famous as the burial places of heroes in 
Church or State. 

Avila is another of the cities which the Spaniards 
fondly believe was built by Hercules. With the 



224 A VILA. 

well-known twelve labors he was fated to perform, 
it would seem that he had sufficient occupation 
without building most of the cities of Spain. Not- 
withstanding the Spaniards firmly believe in Her- 
cules as their great master builder, they also believe 
that he rent a way between Gibraltar and Ceuta for 
the Mediterranean to flow into the Atlantic, and that 
he erected his mighty pillars to signalize the event. 

Avila is celebrated as the birthplace of two dis- 
tinguished characters. The first was Alfonso Tos- 
tado de Madrigal, who died in 1445, whose doctrines 
were so luminous, says his biographer, that he made 
the bhnd to see, '' though Don Ouijote declared 
them more voluminous than luminous." The second 
was " Our Seraphic Mother, the Holy Theresa, 
Spouse of Jesus," born here 15 15, and who was 
made lady patroness of Spain by Philip HI, and, 
with the Virgin Mary and St. James, shares the 
honors of worship in all Spain. She is a favorite 
subject with the Spanish painters, and her pictures 
are found in all the galleries of the kingdom. But 
St. Theresa was not a mere mythical character. She 
was a real actor, a mystic writer, and reformer of the 
Carmelite Order. She was translated to heaven, 
where she received the plans for nunneries of her 
order, and on her return she carried out those plans 
in founding numerous convents. One of the doc- 
trines which she taught may be commended to the 



VALLADOLID. 22$ 

consideration of the theologians of our day, namely, 
that the future punishment of the wicked consists in 
the impossibility of their loving or being loved. 

The Spaniards believe that Christ himself conveyed 
his bride to heaven at her death, while ten thousand 
martyrs gathered around her dying bed. This 
makes the second spouse of Christ found in Spain, 
St. Catherine being the other — too many by one. 

Continuing our journey northward for about fifty 
miles, we pass Medina del Campo, a place of no 
especial interest, except that here died the good 
Queen Isabella. At her request her remains were 
borne by a grand and mournful cavalcade four hun- 
dred miles to Granada for burial. 

About twenty miles farther north lies the famous 
ancient capital, 

VALLADOLID. 

It is a city of fifty thousand inhabitants, but 
mainly interesting as the scene of great historical 
events. It was the residence of the Kings of Castile 
until Philip II made Madrid the capital, in 1560. 

Here died Christopher Columbus, on the 20th of 
May, 1506, at No. 7 Street of Columbus, of a broken 
heart. His great patroness. Queen Isabella, had died 
before, and with her died his last hope of justice 
from the hands of her wary, selfish and politic hus- 
band Ferdinand. At Salamanca, about sixty miles 

southwest of Valladolid, he discussed with the 
10* 



226 VALLADOLID. 

Augustine monks his theory of the rotundity of the 
earth. There his arguments were refuted by Scrip- 
ture, and he was declared an infidel. And now we 
are standing by the house where he closed his glori- 
ous career, cheated in life of rewards solemnly prom- 
ised to him, and ever since cheated of the honor of 
giving his name to the continent which he discovered. 
Even his bones have not been allowed to rest in 
peace. In 1536 they were borne over the ocean to 
San Domingo, and from thence in 1795 to Havana. 
Here at Valladolid lived Cervantes while he was 
publishing his '' Don Quijote." Here was born 
Philip H, and here he celebrated his first Auto da 
Fe, under the auspices of the Inquisition, which de- 
stroyed Spain, by putting to death her best citizens, 
driving out the Jews and Moors, thus banishing all 
its industry and thrift, and leaving in place thereof 
haughty superstition and indolence. Well have the 
Jews and the Moors been avenged. The blood of 
the Protestants in Holland, of the Aztecs in Mexico, 
of the Incas in Peru, of the thousands tortured by 
the Inquisition, has called to heaven for retribu- 
tion. It has been the most priest-ridden, poverty- 
stricken, indolent, ignorant, and superstitious nation 
of Europe. Her most Catholic sovereigns, virgins, and 
patron saints could not save her. She has for three 
centuries been paying the penalty of a century of 
crime. She stands as a warning to all civilized nations. 



BURGOS. 

At Valladolid the railroad turns to the north-east, 
in which direction Hes Burgos, distant about 90 
miles. On account of its historical associations, its 
cathedral and other venerable edifices, it possesses 
great interest. 

It was the ancient capital of Castile and Leon, 
and has been the dwelling-place, and is the burying- 
place, of many distinguished men of past centuries. 

The city lies in the plain of the Arlanzon, which 
bounds it on one side, while a lofty hill, crowned 
with an ancient castle, overlooks and dominates it on 
the other. The ascent to the castle is almost per- 
pendicular for hundreds of feet, and from the top 
you see the lofty peaks of the Pyrenees at the north. 
Nearer, the fruitful valley of the Arlanzon spreads 
like a map before you, while at your feet lies the 
city, filled with its ancient castles of kings and 
princes ; but the gem of all is the cathedral, which 
rears its elegant and stately spires immediately be- 
neath your gaze. 

Unlike most of the cities of Spain, Burgos has 
nothing Moorish in its architecture, but it is a fair 
specimen of the style of the old Gothic Castilian 



228 BURGOS. 

race. Here, after the irruption of the Moors, the 
scattered remnants of the Goths began to gather 
their forces, and at last became consoHdated into a 
new kingdom, until, under St. Ferdinand, it became 
a power capable of coping with the Moors. From 
this city, as his capital, he carried on his conquests 
against the infidels, until he wrested Cordova from 
them in 1235. 

In these ages of the Crusades, love of adventure 
and military renown brought here to the aid of the 
Christians large numbers of the military religious 
orders which had their origin in Palestine, such as 
the Knight Templars, the Knights of St. John, the 
Teutonic Knights. From the same causes and at 
this time arose those famous Spanish orders of Al- 
cantara and Santiago, composed of fanatics, half 
priest and half soldier, of whom Cortez was a fair 
specimen. One beautiful remnant of the Teutonic 
order still remains, in the residence of the Captain 
General, which was once the castle of the order. The 
property of all the orders has long since been confis- 
cated by the Crown. 

The castle, which overlooks the city, once the 
residence of kings, though now dilapidated, is full of 
memories of centuries gone by. 

Here the Cid was married, and also Edward I, of 
England, to Eleanor of Castile. 

Here the Cid held his King Alphonso VI as cap- 



BURGOS. 22g 

tive, till he exacted an oath that he was not con- 
cerned in the assassination of his brother. This 
oath was administered in the church St. Aguida, 
just at the foot of the castle, not upon the Bible, 
but upon an iron lock, which is still hanging on the 
wall, where it has been for 800 years. The fortress 
was built a thousand years ago, and has stood many 
sieges since. Here Wellington besieged the French, 
shut up in this castle for 35 days, but was obliged to 
retire with great loss. 

The cathedral is considered one of the finest in 
Spain. Inferior buildings crowd upon it, so that 
it is difficult to get a good view of its exterior, 
unless we ascend to the castle. There its beauti- 
ful proportions and tall, fragile spires stand out in 
contrast with the mean buildings about it. The 
west front has two spires of delicate open work, 
300 feet high, and on the centre rises a beautiful 
dome, 200 feet high, surrounded by turrets of open 
work, all light, graceful and chaste. The rich carv- 
ing on the doorways and towers reminds you of the 
church of Notre Dame, of Paris. You enter one of 
these lofty sculptured doors, with its beautiful 
Gothic arch. Three naves, 300 feet long and 200 
feet high, supported by massive columns, each 
crowned by a perfect Gothic arch, stretch out before 
you, a picture of perfect architectural proportions, 
symmetry and beauty. At the transept the church 



230 BURGOS. 

is 250 feet broad, and here, where it crosses the cen- 
tral nave, rises the magnificent dome, or lantern, 
which gives light to the coro and the high altar. 

The coro is, as usual in Spanish cathedrals, in the 
centre of the* church. It has seats for a choir of 
over 100, and each seat is most elaborately wrought 
in mahogany, illustrating Bible characters and 
scenes ; around the sides of the exterior naves are a 
large number of chapels, many of them tombs of 
distinguished characters. 

These chapels contain some few pictures of merit. 
One has a crucifix, carved by Nicodemus, which 
traversed the sea alone, and found a resting place 
here. 

These chapels are well supplied with virgins, 
decked out in tinselry and finery, looking much like 
over-grown and over-dressed dolls. 

One would suppose if they must have a Virgin to 
worship that, under the inspiration of such a cathe- 
dral, they could mould her face with a little more 
art and dress her with some degree of taste, and 
that they would remember that she was a meek 
and lowly maiden of Judea, of humble Hfe and 
manners. 

How would she have appeared walking the streets 
of Nazareth or Jerusalem, tricked out with bits of 
lace, ribbons, gilt breast pin, bracelets and ear-rings. 
This depraved taste is shown in all Catholic coun- 



BURGOS. 231 

tries where the influence of a Raphael, a Murilloj 
a Correggio in elevating the taste, has not been 
able to counteract the debasing influence of this 
corrupt desire in the uneducated mind for the 
worship of graven images. Religion, in pandering 
to this desire, has brought a reproach on itself, has 
turned to ridicule one of the most unique, pure and 
lovely characters of history, and degraded her to 
the level of a vulgar, vain, tawdry woman. 

All lovers of truth, justice and religion have a 
right to protest, as we now do. 

The Sacristy had many valuable vestments, but 
not equal to those of Seville. But it contains relics 
not easy to be seen elsewhere. 

We saw here a piece of a bone of the Virgin 
Mother, and one of St. Catherine, St. Anthony, 
St. Augustine, and of many other saints, each not 
larger than a finger nail. 

Here also was a drop of the blood of Christ, on a 
coarse cloth. Each relic was set in gold, like a 
precious gem, and covered with a glass. They were 
then arranged upon a large gold cross, about four 
feet high, which with all the relics were presented 
by Pope Clement VII. This grand cross is brought 
forth in procession on high days, and is worshiped 
like any other idol. 

This cathedral has one picture which is a precious 
gem, kept veiled from sight except on special occa- 



232 BURGOS. 

sions. It is a Magdalen, in the Sacristy, by Leon- 
ardo da Vinci, a sweet, holy face, full of deep emo- 
tion, where repentance and faith beam from her up- 
turned eyes. It is a face more beautiful than that 
of Mona Lisa by the same artist. The common 
fame that even the Roman Church has fastened 
upon the Magdalen is a cruel slander, without war- 
rant of Scripture ; but here Leonardo has portrayed 
her as a pure and holy woman, with no shadow of 
earthly taint. 

THE CID 

We cannot leave Burgos v/ithout doing honor to 
the immortal Cid, the very Achilles of all the Span- 
ish heroes. For eight centuries his exploits have 
been the theme of ballad and song, which are even 
now sung in every cottage of Castile. He was not 
a myth, as it has been sometimes represented. His 
real name was Don Rodrigo Diaz. No picture of 
Burgos would be complete if this central figure was 
missing, for here was his home ; here he was mar- 
ried ; here he dictated terms to princes ; here he 
sleeps in glory among his admiring countrymen. 
Under St. Ferdinand, the liberator from the yoke 
of the Moors, the Cid was the champion of the 
kingdom and of Christians, and as such, often 
in single combat, decided the issue of battle 
and the fate of the kingdom. Moors and Jews 



BURGOS. 233 

were his especial hatred. His exploits against in- 
fidels and dragons, as told in story and song, par- 
take of the marvelous. Having killed Count Lo- 
anzo, the first knight and nobleman of the king- 
dom, to avenge an insult to his aged father, he 
was ordered, according to the custom of the times, 
to make recompense by marrying the daughter of 
the knight he had slain, and thereafter Xemina be- 
came his faithful companion in all his expeditions. 
After having been treated with neglect and ingrati- 
tude by his king, he gathered a band of warriors of 
kindred spirit, and with them he wrested the whole 
province of Valencia from the Moors, and established 
himself as ruler, and there he died in 1091. His 
body was brought from thence, cased in mail, sitting 
upright on his favorite horse, Babieca, and was 
placed in a chapel near Burgos crowned on a 
throne, with his sword, Tisona, in his hand. A pre- 
sumptuous Jew having touched his beard as he sat 
grim in death, the dead warrior raised his mailed 
arm and knocked the intruder down, whereupon it 
became necessary to bury him. ^ His bones now rest 
in a glass case in the town hall of Burgos, with 
those of his beautiful wife. 

In the Cathedral of Burgos, in the sacristy, fast- 
ened high up on the wall, is a decaying iron-bound 
coffer, about five feet square, which has this history : 

The Cid, being in want of ready money, per- 



234 BURGOS. 

suaded the Jewish bankers that this chest was full 
of gold; and he pledged it as security for a loan of 
six hundred marks. It was found filled with sand. 

To his honor it must be said he afterward re- 
deemed his pledge. 

The ballads of a people probably have more influ- 
ence upon the character of a nation than any other 
one influence. For this reason the Cid has done 
more to mould Spanish character than any man in 
its history. His reHgious fanaticism, his knightly 
valor, his haughty courage, his proud, imperious 
spirit, breathed through song and ballad, his ro- 
mantic adventures, read in every home in Spain, 
where little else is read, are impressing the national 
character to this day. The songs we sing in child- 
hood are watchwords through our life. 



THE PYRENEES. 

At Burgos we are about 150 miles from Iran, 
where we leave Spain for France. The road rises 
gradually for 100 miles, until we come upon the 
Pyrenees, with their lofty peaks around us covered 
with snow. It is a grand ride through them. We 
wind up their sides, creep along the face of preci- 
pices, make our way into one valley, follow it up 
until there is no way around, out or over the lofty 
heights ; then we plunge by a tunnel into the very 
bowels of the mountains, and emerge into another 
valley. And so we proceed from one to another for 
fifty miles. The mountains are cold, desolate and 
barren, but the valleys are beautiful pictures of 
green verdure, watered by little streams from the 
hills. As we skirt along the high precipices over- 
hanging these valleys we see far below us the white 
roads winding through them like lines of chalk, and 
the narrow, well-trodden sheep paths crossing the 
opposite mountains in every direction. Thus we 
passed on through valley after valley, through tun- 
nel after tunnel, just at -sunset, when a peculiar pur- 
ple light rested on the eastern side of the valleys, 
glowing with a crimson radiance on the snow-clad 



236 THE PYRENEES. 

tops, or fringing the clouds, which often rolled 
around their summits. One valley, called Urema, 
seemed a little paradise, glowing in living green 
far below us. White, snow-clad mountains piercing 
the clouds stood sentinels around it on every side, 
with flowers, bloom, and verdure at their base. At 
a place called Ormaiztequy we pass, on a grand via- 
duct of solid masonry, a marvel of engineering skill, 
hundreds of feet high, from one side of the valley to 
the other, and at Villareal we pass under a moun- 
tain by a tunnel miles in extent. 

We are now among the valleys and lofty peaks 
of this chain of mountains, which are the bulwark of 
Spain, and isolate it from Europe. They can be dis- 
tinctly traced as a chain from the Atlantic Ocean 
into Tartary. When looked at from a distance, as 
from Montserrat, the chain appears like a vast sea of 
mountain peaks rising like billows on the stormy 
ocean, without any order, but in fact they constitute 
two distinct chains of mountains, from 15 to 30 
miles apart, stretching from the sea to the ocean. 
Many of the peaks are over 11,000 feet high. 

There are numerous passes from north to south, 
but few that can be traversed by wheels. They 
abound in beautiful valleys, hot and medicinal 
springs, rare woods and excellent iron ore, wild 
game and fish. 

The southern slope, on the side of Spain, is rough 



THE PYRENEES. 237 

and precipitous, while the northern front falls off 
more gradually, with terraces and table lands, into 
French territory, where there are numerous spas 
and beautiful healthful resorts for invalids. 

The Spanish Pyrenees, both as to cultivation and 
the habits and manners of the people, remain in the 
same primitive state in which they were centuries 
ago. 

LOYOLA. 

About fifteen miles west of Villa Real, among the 
mountains, lies the little town of Aspeytea, distin- 
guished only as the birth-place of Ignatius Loyola, 
who was born in 1491. 

After the battle of Pampeluna, in 15 15, he retired 
here desperately wounded, and remained a long 
time fluttering between life and death, until St. 
Peter, having pity upon him, descended and healed 
him. Here, inclosing the very room where he was 
born, and where he lay so long ill, royal hands 
have erected a monastery to his memory. 

In July every summer a grand pilgrimage is made 
from all parts of Spain to this shrine, to do honor to 
this man whose influence has cursed this country 
for centuries, whose order was annulled by the Pope 
in 1773, and banished from Spain in 1769. Yet the 
influence of the Jesuits — an order not of priests 
only, but one that unites monastic devotion with 



238 * JESUITISM. 

military discipline and courtly diplomacy — is every- 
where felt in Spain. As the most subtle and effi- 
cient agency for the propagation and conservation 
of the Roman Catholic faith, this order is justly appre- 
ciated. The deeds of self-sacrificing devotion which 
they have accomplished in many heathen lands 
are among the most splendid examples of what the 
human mind, fired by a tireless enthusiasm, can ac- 
complish. Witness the labors of Francis Xavier in 
India and Japan, the heroic life and tragic death of 
Lalemant and Breboeuf and other Jesuit mission- 
aries among the Indians of Canada. 

The lives of these men is a romance of devotion 
to their idea of duty exceeded only by that of St. 
Paul ; and yet a system must be judged by its prin- 
ciples and their effects as worked out on the large 
scale and through long periods of time, and not 
from a few solitary examples, however brilliant. 
Viewed in this light, the order of Loyola would appear 
far different from what it would if Francis Xavier is 
taken as a fair exponent of its character. The 
object of the Order of Jesus was to unite spiritual 
and temporal power, and to perpetuate the Papacy 
as a ruling system, not as a religion. Their principle 
of action was that " the end justifies the means ; " that 
" faith need not be observed toward heretics ; " in 
other words, that truth and justice, right and wrong, 
were variable principles, and they the self-consti- 



JESUITISM. 239 

tuted judges of their application. Such an assump- 
tion, cherished by any order of men, will invari- 
ably dry up the better sympathies of their nature, 
render them subtle, selfish and cruel, and will sap 
the foundation of all confidence between man and 
man. 

Such has been the history of the Order of Jesus 
wherever they have gained a foothold. They have 
been a dark, crafty element of discord in Church and 
State, despite individual instances of sublime heroism 
in many of its members. 

In forming our judgment of this order, we should 
consider the means used by them. They used the 
religious sentiment of men to gain ascendancy over 
their minds. They persuaded the people not to 
think, not to reason, not to read ; they taught that 
souls would be saved by implicit obedience only. 
They laid hold, with a worldly policy upon all 
human means cf moving and holding the minds of 
men. They built fine churches and schools ; sent 
forth missionaries ; mingled in courts ; sought secu- 
lar power; united the characteristics of priest and 
courtier. This deep, crafty policy of saving men's 
souls for them, of thinking and acting for them, has 
had and does have its effect in Spain more than in 
any other country. It falls In with the indolent and 
superstitious character of the people. You will see 
in all parts of Spain the black cloak and broad- 



240 JESUITISM. 

brimmed hat, and the wary, crafty features of the 
courtier priest underneath. 

Loyola died July 31, 1556, at the age of sixty- 
three years, and was made a saint about 100 years 
afterward, and thus we have the spectacle of one 
infallible Pope suppressing the order of Loyola as 
dangerous and wicked, and another pope, equally 
infallible, declaring him a saint. 

We now descend the northern slope of the 
Pyrenees through many romantic passes, which are 
the key to Spain, and which were fought for by 
Wellington and Napoleon. We are now in one of 
the Basque Provinces, which are so full of interest 
to the ethnologist. Here we find a people whose 
origin and language are pre-historic. 

Irun is the last town on the frontier. The River 
Bidassoa is the boundary line between France and 
Spain. As we cross this on a fine iron bridge, we 
notice far below us a small island in the river, which 
has been the scene of many important events. It 
is called the Isle of Conference. It is neutral 
ground, and as such the sovereigns of France and 
Spain have made this the place of their mutual ne- 
gotiations for many centuries. It was at Bayonne, a 
few miles from here, that Catharine de Medicis, of 
France, and the Duke of Alva, representing Philip 
II. of Spain, met and planned the Massacre of St. 
Bartholomew, which was so successfully carried out 



BA YONNE. 241 

that 30,000 Protestants were slaughtered on the 
24th and 25th days of August, 1572. This deed of 
blood, which horrified the rest of the civilized 
world, was approved by the Pope, who ordered a 
general thanksgiving to God, whose gospel of love, 
peace and good-will to men had been so signally 
illustrated thereby. 

The journey across .France from Bayonne to Mar- 
seilles will bring us to our starting place. 

BAYONNE 

is situated on the Adour and the Nive, near the sea, 
has a good harbor, docks and numerous manufac- 
tories. Here we begin to feel the pulses of business 
life, in strange contrast with the deadness on the 
other side of the Pyrenees. The Adour runs 
through the town, and is crossed by massive 
bridges. The streets are wide, and open into large 
and well-built squares. The railroad to Toulouse 
follows up the Adour to the East. On every hand 
the people are at work in the fields ; cows are 
yoked to carts and plows ; the farming instru- 
ments are not so rude as those used in Spain. On 
our right hand all the way across the kingdom tower 
the Pyrenees. We pass through Pau, situate on a 
high plateau 250 feet above the Gave de Pau, with a 
beautiful green valley along its banks. On this 



242 LOURDES. 

plateau are situated the hotels looking down on 
the river and valley, and beyond it a few miles, 
lie a line of low blue mountains, and beyond 
them to the South the snow-clad Pyrenees, which 
stretch away to the East in peaks, cones and ser- 
rated ridges as far as the eye can reach. The 
railroad winds along the river, continually ascend- 
ing, until we strike a spur of the Pyrenees at a 
point where the river breaks through, and then we 
rise in a few miles 600 feet, and emerge into an up- 
land valley with mountain tops all around and the 
snow-capped Pyrenees from a distance looking into 
it. This is the village of 

LOURDES, 

which has so recently been added to the already long 
array of shrines made holy by the miraculous pres- 
ence of the Virgin. Upon a hill just out of the vil- 
lage is a splendid new church erected over the place 
where the Virgin mother appeared to a peasant girl 
in 1858. The poor people, out of curiosity, began 
to flock to the place, and still the wonder grew, 
until in a few weeks 150,000 persons had come to 
see it. The authorities at last forbade the assemblage 
as a nuisance. The Bishop of Tarbes thought bet- 
ter of it. A holy shrine in any man's bishopric is 
not to be despised. Every pilgrim leaves a certain 



LANGUEDOC. 243 

amount of money. The bishop declared the mir- 
acle veritable. 

Here now come pilgrims from all parts of the 
world. At this time a pilgrimage under the direc- 
tion of a distinguished English nobleman, is on its 
way to the shrine, said to be undertaken for the 
purpose of enlisting the sympathies of the Virgin in 
behalf of England in her difficulties with Ireland. 

Why is it that none of these holy places are found 
in Protestant countries? Is it because Catholics 
would be ashamed to defend them in the face of 
Protestants, or is it that the Virgin will not vouch- 
safe her presence among Protestants? But why 
should she not use her power to convert unbe- 
lievers? Is not this the province of miracles? 
Would not all Protestants be persuaded could they 
witness a veritable miracle? Is it not a fact that 
the alleged miracles always happen among ignorant, 
superstitious people, liable to excitement and decep- 
tion ? Have they ever been performed among the 
more matter-of-fact people of Germany, England, 
Scotland, and the United States ? 

LANGUEDOC. 

In pursuing our journey to Toulouse, the capital 
of ancient Languedoc, we strike the head waters of 
the Garonne, and pursue its beautiful valley north- 



244 LANGUEDOC. 

east through a rich and well-cultivated country. 
Languedoc was the ancient name for a number of 
departments in France with more modern names 
which lie north of the Pyrenees and west of the 
Rhone. Its capital was Toulouse, which is a fine 
city, with 130,000 inhabitants, situated on the River 
Garonne, which is crossed by a magnificent bridge, 
810 feet long and 72 feet wide. It is surrounded 
by a rich agricultural district, and has a large trade 
for an inland town. It is well built, with many 
large squares, and is more emphatically a French 
city than other cities farther north, which are more 
frequented by foreigners. Here was born Henry 
XV of France. 

Languedoc has a mournful history. At the be- 
ginning of the thirteenth century it was one of the 
most fertile, sunny, happy parts of France until the 
Inquisition laid its bloody hand upon it, scathed it 
with fire and deluged it with blood in the name of 
religion. 

It was the land of poetry and song, of elegance 
and freedom, the home of the Troubadour. 
Count Bayard VI was then prince. By their 
association with Barcelona and other cities re- 
cently Moorish, and with Jews and Arabs in the 
seaports, the people came to cherish tolerance in 
religious opinions, and here at last grew up the 
heresy of denying the supremacy of the Pope, the 



LANGUEDOC. 245 

authority of the priesthood, the efficacy of prayer 
for the dead, and the existence of purgatory. They 
reviled the enormities of the priests in their ballads. 
They were rich, joyous, worldly, happy. Their 
beautiful land, their wealth, their happy, careless 
life, excited the envy of that great high priest of the 
Inquisition, Dominic Guzman. He could not en- 
dure either their loose ballads or their heresy, and 
at last, under the authority of Pope Innocent III, 
he began to preach the extermination of the Albi- 
genses, so called from Alby, a city of Languedoc. 
Here the Inquisition was first established, to hunt 
out and try heretics by torture and death. Its ad- 
ministration was committed to the fanatical Cas- 
tilian, Dominic. 

It did not succeed in extirpating the heresy, 
and then the famous crusade against the Albigenses 
was preached and prosecuted by the Church, from 
1208 to 1220. This crusade was the most noted, 
bloody, and disgraceful event of the thirteenth cent- 
ury. It called together an army composed of rude 
northern knights, and of the wild, reckless spirits of 
the age led by Simon de Montfort, thirsting for 
blood and plunder. Allured by the hope of sacking 
the beautiful and rich cities of Southern France, 
they came in hordes, like vultures to the prey, and 
for twelve years this war was carried on with the 
most savage ferocity under the authority of the 



246 ALBIGENSES. 

Pope. The human tigers reveled in blood. It was 
a crusade without the peril of a long journey to 
Palestine. It was a rich land to plunder ; it was a 
happy, joyous clime in which to revel ; it was an 
opportunity to gratify all the brutal passions of a 
brutal age, under the sanction of religion and with 
the promise of Paradise. The Vicar of the meek 
and loving Christ, from his throne in the Vatican, 
said in his commission: "You shall ravage every 
field ; you shall slay every human being. Strike and 
spare not. The measure of their iniquity is full and 
the blessing of the Church is on your heads." 

This beautiful, sunny land of the Troubadour was 
soon a smoking ruin. The savage hordes of foreign 
invaders sacked the cities, slaughtered women and 
children, until these missionaries of the Mother 
Church had murdered one-half of the people, and 
until the friar Dominic himself could no longer en- 
dure the sight of the flowing blood which reddened 
all her rivers and her sunny plains. This is said 
to have been the first essay the Church made to 
sustain its supremacy by force of arms against Chris- 
tians. Hitherto pagans and infidels only had felt the 
constraining influence of the Christian sword, but 
now and hereafter the heretic was to try its restrain- 
ing power, and from this date the Inquisition took 
its rise. Its tortures and its fires were for ages after- 
ward to be the agents of persuasion instead of rea- 



ALBIGENSES. 247 

son and love. In this war, by one assault on 
Beziers, 20,000 persons were destroyed in cold 
blood for having given protection to fugitives. The 
Abbot of Cetaux was present with the commission 
and as the representative of the Pope. The soldiers 
were in doubt how to distinguish, in their indiscrim- 
inate slaughter, the heretics from the believers. 
The Bishop in his holy zeal solved the difficulty by 
saying, '' Slay them all. The Lord will know his 
own." This bishop gave an account of the slaugh- 
ter to the Pope, and regretted he had been able to 
slay only 20,000. In this Albigensian war 250,000 
lives were offered up as a holocaust to the God of 
love, as a mark of the zeal and loyalty of his vice- 
gerent on the throne of the Vatican. 

Oh, religion, what crimes have been done in thy 
name ! 

Our journey takes us through Castelnaudary, Car- 
cassonne, and Beziers, all places of note in this cru- 
sade, and which suffered terribly at the hands of 
the fierce bigot, Simon de Montfort. 

We pass the cities of Narbonne, Cette, Nismes, 
all of which are places of interest, but which we can- 
not stop to describe. At Tarrascon we cross the 
Rhone, and are soon at our starting place, the City 
of Marseilles, and our journey from the Pyrenees to 
the Pillars of Hercules is ended. 

It may appear as if we had been seeking every 



248 ALBIGENSES, 

Opportunity to show the dark and tragic deeds done 
in the name of reUgion, but the truth is that the 
CathoHc rehgion has had a more complete sway over 
the human mind in Spain than in any other country 
on the globe, not excepting Italy. It has allied itself 
with government, and for carrying out its policy 
for the elevation and salvation of the human mind 
it has here always had the arm of civil power to en- 
force its behests, and has thus had a fair test for 
centuries with every human resource at its disposal. 

As its marked deeds and triumphs come out on 
the page of history, from age to age, as place after 
place recalls them in our travels, does not truth 
and justice to principle demand that these deeds, 
the outcome of a great, the greatest ecclesiastical 
polity of the world, should be fairly stated ? 

Puritanism must be responsible for persecution of 
witchcraft, and explain it as best it can ; Calvin for 
the death of Servetus ; Mohammedanism for polyg- 
amy ; and Romanism for the Inquisition, for St. 
Bartholomew's day, for the massacre of the Albi- 
genses, and for Jesuitism and Mariolatry. After 
centuries of trial it is fair to judge every system of 
religion by its effects. The divine rule must be 
applied : '' By their fruits ye shall know them." On 
this principle compare England and Spain, Ireland 
and Scotland, New England and the South Ameri- 
can States, any Protestant with any Catholic country. 



ALBIGENSES. 249 

With these reflections and apologies we bid fare- 
well to Spain, the land of the past. Poor, proud, 
haughty, ignorant, living on her past glories, which 
she wraps around her nakedness, as one of her 
poverty-stricken hidalgos, glorying in his lofty lin- 
eage, draws his ancient cloak around his lank limbs 
and tattered garments, and persuades himself that 
he is still one of the grand old knights of other days. 

But the days of her humiliation will end. When 
a pure, benign Christian religion shall be taught by 
her priesthood ; when superstition shall lose its 
sway ; when education shall elevate the people, and 
a free liberal government shall extend its shield of 
protection over them ; when the colors of its pa- 
triots like Castelar shall be crowned with success, 
then will Spain again resume her place among the 
great nations of the earth with all her ancient 
prestige and glory. 



THE END. 



